


Vengeance

by Qille



Series: The Vengeance Series [3]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blood, Gen, Swearing, Violence, and zoethian, but i cant say who because spoilers, but nothing blatantly obvious, but that's about it, like xephmadia, okay maybe a tiny bit of ridgena, others may appear, there are some really mild shipping things in this, this story is why it's called the Vengeance series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qille/pseuds/Qille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while, there was peace. Nobody was fighting. But when Rythian suddenly attempts to murder Lalna in cold blood, the peace is shattered and the first domino in a long train of events is toppled. Will everybody survive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And the World Burned

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this story and the next two are the main three stories of the whole series, which is why this is called the Vengeance series. This chapter has a lot of blood, some needles, and a bit of stabbing. Also a LOT of hurt/comfort going on, so.... enjoy.

_What if he lied?_

That was the simple thought that started it all. He didn't know why that little idea bothered him so much. He knew that damn scientist was insane, but they had a treaty. Sure, it had been made at gunpoint, but it was still a treaty.

Then why was he so nervous?

Everything was okay. Nobody was fighting. He hadn't even seen the scientist in some time.

But he was still nervous.

He heard voices in his dreams.

_He lied... he's planning to kill you._

_Scientists are evil. They can't be trusted. He's going to kill you... and her._

_Don't you want to protect her? Remember what he did last time? She nearly died because of him._

_You made a promise that you would protect her. Isn't this the best way to protect her? By killing the threat?_

The voices whispered to him every night. Feeding his fear. Enhancing his nightmares.

One night he couldn't sleep.

He had to end this.

As quietly as he could, he made sure she was still asleep. Then he left the house. Once outside, he used a bit of magic and teleported.

He found himself standing at the edge of a forest, looking over a ruined landscape. There were enormous craters and scorch marks all over the ground, left by various missiles and explosions.

Avoiding the mobs, he quickly made his way to the partially destroyed bunker. Even from a distance, he sensed the residue of Ender magic coming from the roof. He remembered the stories he had heard about what had happened here. What damage science and magic could cause when mixed together. Especially if the magic was Ender magic.

That was another reason why that mad scientist was so dangerous. He used both science _and_ magic. An impossible combination. It was sure to drive him even more insane than he already was. And that much power in the hands of an insane man could destroy the world.

Entering the bunker, he shuddered at the distinct lack of anything magic. There was so much science everywhere, it made him want to throw up. But in this situation, he needed a bit of science.

Looking around, he found a set of stairs that led down into a room filled with chests. He looked through them, but he didn't find what he needed. Turning, he went through an iron door, but he jumped back in shock when he was faced with an entire wall made of glowstone and obsidian that had Creeper heads mounted on it. Frankly, he didn't even want to go near it.

He went down the steps and skirted along the wall, doing his best to avoid whatever death trap was behind that wall. He found another set of stairs that led far down, possibly all the way to bedrock. Carefully, he followed them down, and just when he thought it was just a mineshaft, he found an opening under the stairs that opened into a small tunnel, which led to an enormous machine that stunk with science.

He shuddered a bit, but then he noticed the hole in the floor under the monstrous piece of machinery. Carefully, he went towards it and found that at the bottom was a concrete-lined chest.

Inside was exactly what he needed.

He just took one, because it was all he would need.

Running back up to the main part of the bunker, he took several other things that he would need. A launcher, a bit of redstone wire, a lever, and a small generator.

As he left the base, he smiled behind his mask. His bright blue eyes began to glow purple.

His smile becoming more menacing by the second, Rythian teleported away.

**XXX**

Lalna sat bolt upright with a gasp. He looked around confused for a second before realizing that he was still in his castle. He had fallen asleep at his computer again.

Slowly, he stood up and stretched his stiff back. Looking out the window, he saw that the crescent moon was falling through the sky, and dawn would be coming soon.

He sighed a bit, his nerves still rattled from the nightmare. It had been another one about the time he had been sucked into the End. For some reason, he couldn't seem to shake the experience.

He figured a bit of science would calm him down.

Using his teleporters, he went down to his lab. He began to work on his newest project when he realized that he would need more Ender Pearls. This project was using a lot of them, but he was sure it would be worth it. Especially if it meant that he would never get trapped in the End again..

Teleporting up to the storage area, he began looking through the chests for any leftover pearls.

Nothing. 

“Well shit...” he muttered. He'd have to go out and get some.

Tiredly, he started to look for his armor and his power glove, although he didn't exactly remember taking them off.

After looking for a moment, however, he got distracted and looked out the window. He still needed to fix his force field. 

Before he could do anything, however, he stopped. Something was wrong.

He just barely had time to pull his goggles down over his eyes before the nuke hit.

The shockwave sent him through the window. Luckily, he was only on the second floor. Before he even hit the ground, the nuke itself exploded, and his castle shattered like a piece of glass. Some of the shrapnel flying through the air hit him and left deep lacerations. The large fireball caused by the explosion caught up with him and fried his back.

He hit the ground hard and came to a stop only a foot away from the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. Burning shrapnel and debris rained down around him.

For a moment, he couldn't see anything. Then his head stopped ringing a bit, and he was able to get a look at the burning ruins of his beautiful castle. He carefully pushed himself up on his knees, his eyes wide in disbelief and fear. 

And then the pain hit him. It was so intense that he doubled over, gasping for breath. Looking down, he saw that there was a deep wound stretching across his left side. Blood was spilling out of it, turning his white lab coat red. He quickly pressed his hand to the wound to try and stop at least some of the blood flow. He grimaced at the pain, and even more so when he noticed that the blood was dripping between his fingers. He also noticed that there was blood dripping into his eyes from a cut on his forehead, and that made him realize that he wasn't wearing his goggles anymore. They were lying a few feet away, and the left lens was shattered. He could feel the stinging pain where the glass had cut his face.

Who could have done this?! He hadn't been bothering anybody!

Then he got his answer.

Looking up, he saw a tall thin figure emerging from the smoke. He was wearing a cloak, and his eyes were glowing through the dark haze.

Rythian.

Lalna stared up at Rythian, his eyes wide with horror. He himself was heavily wounded, unarmed, and terrified. Rythian's mask hid his emotions, but his glowing purple eyes revealed that he was pissed.

And he had a knife in his hand.

Lalna quickly looked behind him and saw that the cliff he was kneeling on jutted out past the rocks on the coastline, but it was still close. And the ocean looked very rough.

Before he had time to decide if the jump was survivable, the Mage grabbed him by the back of his shredded lab coat and yanked him upright. Lalna let out a cry of pain as the action stressed the deep wounds on his chest and back. He choked a bit, tasting blood.

“Rythian...” he gasped. “Why are you doing this?” His voice was rough from the smoke, along with the fear and pain he was experiencing.

“I'm keeping everyone safe,” he growled, his face only inches away from the scientist's. “I didn't start this war... but I'm ending it...”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lalna saw Rythian's hand shoot forward. Then he felt the knife hit him in the chest, slightly on the left side. He felt the blade break through a rib and sink deep into his flesh. It must have missed his heart by a centimeter, but it did hit a lung and tear it open. It knocked the breath out of him too.

Only when Rythian pulled the knife out did he feel the pain.

Rythian dropped his coat, and he crumpled to the ground, curling around the new wound and gasping for breath. He coughed up more blood. The pain was too intense for him to scream.

He was dying. The pool of blood on the ground was slowly growing.

Then he felt Rythian's foot on his shoulder, pushing him back towards the edge of the cliff.

He weakly grabbed Rythian's leg, too weak to hold on.

“Please....” he choked out. “Don't....”

“I'm sorry Lalna,” said Rythian, his voice sounding more like an Enderman's than a human. “But it's the only way to keep her safe.”

Then he roughly shoved Lalna's shoulder, and it was enough to send him over the edge.

Lalna felt himself falling, and the impact with the water was enough to knock the remaining air out of his lungs. Then he was surrounded by icy water, slowly sinking.

He got tunnel vision instantly. He was losing so much blood from his various wounds. He was getting no oxygen. The cold was shutting down his body just as well as the pain and blood loss.

He closed his eyes as he sank deeper into the blackness.

Right at that moment, something on his watch started to beep. A small, green light started to flash on and off.

Several weeks earlier, Lalna had installed a small device in the watch that would constantly measure his vitals. If he was close to death, it would activate a teleportation device, which would tap into his subconscious and take him to the safest location he could think of.

He hadn't had a chance to test it before. But at the last second, it finally worked.

A bright green light surrounded Lalna, and a moment later, he found himself on dry ground.

He started violently coughing, gasping for air, but he simply couldn't catch his breath. He did, however, manage to look around.

He saw a very familiar house.

Using every last reserve of energy, he dragged his broken body towards the door. With his left fist, he weakly banged on the door three times before collapsing.

The door opened, followed by a gasp and a female voice whispering “Oh my god!”

Lalna smiled a weak, bloody smile as the girl knelt down next to him.

“Hello, Lomadia,” he whispered before losing consciousness. 

**XXX**

Rythian watched as Lalna fell into the churning seas below. He waited for a minute to see if he would resurface, but as he expected, he didn't. 

The scientist was dead, and the threat was finally gone.

Rythian looked up at the horizon. He saw storm clouds forming, letting off flashes of lightning. It was still far away for him to hear the thunder.

Looking back at the ground, Rythian noticed that Lalna's goggles were laying on the ground, half broken. He picked them up, noticing that there was blood on them. He looked back at the burning remains of the castle, then back at the goggles, then he tossed the goggles into the destroyed castle.

Knowing that the others would have heard the explosion, he quickly teleported back to his home in the desert and changed into clothes that weren't covered in blood. And as he washed the blood off of his hands, he noticed that Zoeya and Teep were nowhere to be found. That was when he saw the note.

It said: _“Rythian, we heard a huge explosion and we're going to check it out.”_

It was signed by Zoeya.

Rythian sighed and jogged out the door, back towards the remains of Lalna's castle. He didn't teleport for fear of making it there before everyone else.

By the time he got there half an hour later, almost everyone else was surrounding the destroyed castle, which was partially silhouetted by the rising sun.

There was very little left of the castle in terms of structure. Several walls were still standing, but there wasn't much. Bits and pieces of technology and science equipment were scattered around the castle remains. Thick black clouds of smoke were still rising from the castle, even though all the fires had been put out.

Rythian watched from the trees for a minute before stepping out into the open and walking towards Zoeya and Teep, who were both standing about fifty meters away, staring up at the remains of the castle.

In fact, that's what most of the others were doing. He could see Sips, Sjin, Nano, and Minty a bit further away, and they were all staring up at the destruction in horror. Sjin was sitting on the ground. In the opposite direction, he saw Benji and Strippin huddled together, their eyes wide with shock. Further on, he could see Nilesy sitting against a tree, his glasses in his hand and his face hidden by his arms, which were crossed over his knees. Rythian could tell he was crying. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Martyn and Toby hiding in the trees, unsure what to do but shocked at the destruction.

Xephos and Honeydew were the worst. They were also the closest to Zoeya and Teep, so Rythian was heading right in their direction.

Both of them were crying. Xephos was sitting on his knees, staring up at the destroyed castle with tears running down his pale face. He made no attempt to hide them. He simply sat gasping for breath as Honeydew, who was standing next to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders. The dwarf also had tears streaming down his face.

They were both dead silent.

Finally, Rythian made it to Zoeya and Teep.

“Guys, what happened?” he asked, faking confusion and concern.

Zoeya looked up at him, and Rythian could tell that she had been crying too.

“We don't know what happened,” she said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “I was sleeping, and I was woken up by this huge explosion. We came to see what happened... I guess we _all_ kind of figured out where it came from.”

Doing his best to look sad, Rythian wrapped his long thin arm around Zoeya's shoulders. She was trembling, probably both upset at the loss of her old friend, or more likely, remembering what had happened at Blackrock.

“Why isn't anyone going near the place?” asked Rythian after a moment.

“Ridge told us that it was still unstable, and the rest could collapse,” she said. “He's in there now... looking for the body...”

Rythian nodded, knowing that if Ridge found his body, he would probably be able to bring him back to life.

What they didn't know was that Lalna's body was lost to the ocean forever. The scientist would not be returning.

At that moment, a figure appeared on the edge of one of the walls. It was Ridge.

Everyone turned to look at him, and they all saw that he carried nothing. He flew down and landed in front of Xephos and Honeydew. Rythian was close enough to see and hear what happened.

Ridge walked up to them and handed Xephos something.

Lalna's goggles. Shattered and covered in blood.

“I'm sorry,” he said sadly before walking past them to the edge of the forest, where he slid down against a tree and put his head in his burnt and bloody hands, hiding his face. 

Xephos and Honeydew simply sat staring at the broken goggles. After a minute, however, Honeydew dropped to his knees, and Xephos seemed to just crumple. He fell forward and curled up in a ball, shaking and gasping for air, his asthma intensified by the crying.

By now, Rythian was feeling very uncomfortable. Had he done the right thing?

He glanced back at Zoeya, who was watching Xephos and Honeydew with teary eyes. He saw her metal arm, and he was reminded of what he had prevented by killing the scientist.

That was when he noticed that another member of the group was missing.

“Zoeya, where's Lomadia?” asked Rythian quietly.

“From what I heard, she was one of the first to get here after the explosion, but she ran back home. I don't blame her, and I feel really sorry for her. She and Lalna were like brother and sister,” Zoeya explained.

Rythian felt his chest tighten a bit more. He was sure it was guilt, and it would follow him around for the rest of his life, but he knew that no one would ever fall victim to one of his bombs again, and that the war was truly over this time.

And now no one else would get hurt...

**XXX**

Lomadia had been awake when the explosion happened. She had just woken up a few minutes before, having had a nightmare. Seeing that it was close to dawn, she figured it wasn't worth going back to sleep. She got up and got dressed, but before she could do anything else, the explosion happened.

The blast was so loud that it actually cracked one of her windows, along with knocking her to the floor as the ground shook. It also scared the hell out of her owls.

Her mind instantly went to Lalna.

She recognized a nuke when she heard one, but now she wasn't sure if Lalna had launched one or been on the receiving end of one. Or if his reactor had exploded again. Either way, she could tell that he was in trouble.

She quickly ran to look for her sword when she heard someone knocking weakly on the front door. Then she quickly ran to the door and threw it open.

She gasped when the light from inside illuminated the deathly pale bloody figure in the torn up and soaking wet lab coat.

“Oh my god...” she gasped.

“Hello, Lomadia,” said Lalna weakly, smiling up at her with pained and tired eyes.

Before she could respond, Lalna's eyes closed and his entire body went limp as he slipped into unconsciousness.

“No no no no Lalna, stay with me!” exclaimed Lomadia, dropping to her knees and cradling Lalna's head. He wasn't responding, and he was shivering and struggling to breathe. She also noticed that the large bloodstains on the front of his lab coat were spreading.

As carefully as she could, she picked Lalna up and carried him inside. It was a bit difficult because he was taller and heavier than her, but he hadn't eaten in at least a week, and she was strong.

She quickly propped him somewhat upright on the bed in her room. Then she pulled off his gloves and boots, and the remains of his lab coat and shirt so that she could see the wounds.

The first wound stretched across his stomach and ribcage. It was deep, and there was a steady stream of thick dark blood pouring out of it. The wound on the left center of his chest was much smaller, but it went much deeper. There was a bit of blood oozing from the wound. Glancing at his back, she saw that it was covered in burns and lacerations, probably from the fire from the explosion. There was a deep gash on his forehead that was dripping blood, along with several other smaller cuts around his left eye. His arms and the back of his legs also had cuts and burns.

She still couldn't figure out why his hair was wet. As she ran to get a medical kit, she thought about it. Had he been doing repair work on his reactor? After all, it was surrounded by water. But if the reactor had exploded, there wouldn't have been a big fire, because it would have been extinguished by the water. There also wouldn't have been much of a shockwave either, since it all would have been contained by the hardened glass sphere.

So then what was it?

Lomadia quickly returned to Lalna, carrying the medical kit with her. She noticed that in the minute and a half it had taken her to get the kit, Lalna had gotten paler, he was shaking harder, the bloodstains had grown larger, and his lips and the tips of his fingers had turned light blue. He was feverish and sweaty, and he was struggling to breathe. When he did manage to inhale, it resulted in a sickly rasping noise, and judging by the grimace on his face, breathing was downright painful.

That was when Lomadia realized that he wasn't getting enough oxygen, and one of the wounds must have hit his lung. She could tell which one because of the location and how little it was bleeding.

Realizing that his lung must have collapsed, she reached into her kit and located a tiny hollow metal tube. She took a tiny knife and made a small incision right below the wound. Then she forcefully jammed the tube into the cut. There was a sharp hissing noise, and Lalna immediately started gasping for breath, which seemed to come easier thanks to the tube that would keep air from putting pressure on his lung and collapsing it again. Some of the blue color started to fade from his lips and fingertips.

Now that she knew he wouldn't die of asphyxiation, she could tend to his other wounds, mainly the one on his stomach that was still bleeding.

She pulled out a needle and some thread. It took her several minutes to thread the needle because her hands were shaking so much, both from worry about her brother and from her fear of needles. However, she finally got it. She dipped the thread in a bit of alcohol, then she held the needle over a candle to sterilize it. Once it had cooled down, she took a deep breath to calm down and started stitching up the wound.

When she was halfway through, however, Lalna woke up for a moment. His eyes opened and he looked around, afraid and confused. He started hyperventilating, but that just sent him into a coughing fit, and blood started to trickle out of his mouth, along with the wound, which was only half stitched up.

“Shh, it's okay,” whispered Lomadia, sitting next to Lalna and leaning into his field of view, one hand on his shoulder and the other holding the bloody needle out of sight.

Lalna's breathing slowed down and he relaxed when he saw her. He mouthed out her name, unable to speak.

Lomadia smiled a bit. “It's okay, you're safe now,” she said.

Lalna looked around, his eyes glassy from the fever and the pain. Lomadia could tell that he was slightly delirious, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Not until she finished stitching up the wound.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked softly. Even though it had only been about five minutes since the explosion, the trauma may have made him forget what had happened.

Slowly, Lalna nodded, his eyes filling with terror at the memory of the event, even though it had happened too recently for it to be a memory.

“M-my c-c-castle...” he whimpered, swallowing the blood that had pooled in the back of his throat. “It...... it's..... g-gone....”

“What was it?” asked Lomadia, using her free hand to gently brush the blond hair out of Lalna's eyes.

“N-nuke,” he stammered, his voice becoming more and more strained. He started breathing faster, and Lomadia became worried that he would have a panic attack.

“Shshsh, calm down,” she whispered. “Slow, shallow breaths, or you'll start coughing again.”

Lalna nodded a bit and closed his eyes, focusing on breathing. Finally, he had calmed down enough to start slipping back into unconsciousness.

“Lalna...?” asked Lomadia after a minute.

“Hm?” was Lalna's lethargic response. He didn't even open his eyes, and his breathing was already much slower. He was slipping away again.

“Who did this?” she asked.

Lalna was quiet for a moment. Finally, he swallowed a bit more blood before choking out one last word.

“Rythian.”

Then he slipped back into his comatose state, leaving Lomadia sitting shocked. She couldn't believe that Rythian would do something like this!

Quickly, she finished stitching up the wound. Then she went and found two pieces of cloth. The first cloth she dipped into an icy bucket of water. She rung it out and laid it on Lalna's burning forehead, hoping to quell his fever a bit. Also to soak up some of the blood from the gash on his forehead. The second cloth she dipped in another bucket with warm water. With this cloth, she began to clean his wounds, doing her best to get the dried blood off of his skin while not stressing any of his wounds. It took her a while, especially after she realized that several of the cuts around his eyes had broken glass lodged into them, and she had to remove them with tweezers.

She didn't have the stomach to stitch up any more of his wounds, and since they were all clean and less likely to get infected, she pulled out some bandages.

The first wound she bandaged was the on his stomach and ribs. She then worked her way up, covering the wounds on his back as well. She made extra sure to cut the bandages open where the metal tube was so that it could continue to keep air from leaking outside his lung and putting pressure on it, causing it to collapse again.

After bandaging his chest and left shoulder, which was badly burnt, she bandages his forehead to keep the blood out of his eyes. While she did so, she noticed that his fever had gotten worse. She didn't have any medicines or potions that would help him heal, so she would either have to make some or steal some. And she had a feeling she would be stealing.

With a sigh, she took the cool cloth, which she had removed to bandage his forehead, and she dipped it into the icy water again. This time, she dabbed at his cheeks with it for a few minutes before laying it across his neck to try and cool him down.

She quickly moved on and finished bandaging the three deep cuts on his left wrist and the cuts and burns on the back of his lower legs. Once she had finished, she carefully adjusted him so that he was laying own. Then she carefully laid a blanket over him to keep the shivering at bay.

After making sure that he would be okay, she turned to face Mr. Owl, who had been sitting on the opposite side of the room watching.

“Keep an eye on him,” she said. “If he wakes up, come and get me. I'm going to see what happened to the castle.”

Mr. Owl hooted softly in response.

Lomadia nodded before turning and quickly finding her sword. Then she used a bit of magic and teleported herself to the edge of the forest on the far side of Lalna's castle.

What she saw shocked her.

What had once been a beautiful castle was now a burning ruin, with only a few walls still standing. The fire that still burned inside caused it to cast an eerie orange light across the land, and the sounds of crackling fire and crumbling bricks filled the dawn air.

Lomadia quickly ran forward, her wide eyes starting to fill with tears. Lalna had been right in the middle of that. No... he had been the target. It was a miracle he even survived.

Then she remembered that Rythian had done this.

He had tried to kill Lalna.

Before she could speculate on what would happen next, she realized that she wasn't alone. About twenty meters away, three figures stood staring up at the burning remains. She quickly ran towards them, and she realized that it was Xephos, Honeydew, and Ridge. All three of them were staring up at the castle in horror.

When Lomadia got closer, Xephos spotted her.

“Lomadia!” he exclaimed, running over to her.

Lomadia immediately embraced him, and she noticed that he was trembling, and his breathing was rapid and shaky, as if he were about to have a panic attack or an asthma attack.

“Xephos, do you know what happened?” asked Lomadia, her voice cracking. She couldn't help but start to cry, even though she knew that Lalna was still alive and breathing, tucked into her bed back at home. It was just that everything suddenly became very real, and that Lalna was still in danger. If anyone were to find out that he was still alive, it could end in disaster. And as much as it hurt, she couldn't even let Xephos or Honeydew know. Even if Lalna was their best friend.

“We don't know what happened,” stammered Xephos. “We just heard a fucking huge explosion, and we figured this was where it came from.... We just got here a minute ago...”

At that point, Honeydew and Ridge joined the conversation.

“Guys, shouldn't we do something?” asked Honeydew frantically.

Xephos nodded, and he started to let go of Lomadia so that he could head for the destroyed castle, but Ridge held up his hand.

“Guys, look at the walls,” he said. “They're barely standing, and the last thing we need is for you guys to get crushed. If Lalna was in there, then he's dead. No doubt about it.”

At this, Lomadia felt tears start to flow more freely from her eyes.

Ridge continued to talk, however. “But if I can find his body, then there's a chance I can bring him back. Just make sure to keep everybody away from the castle,” he said before flying towards the castle and disappearing through the smoke.

That was the final straw for Lomadia. She didn't want to see what would happen when Ridge emerged empty-handed... if he came back at all.

Quickly, she backed away from Xephos. “I-I'm sorry,” she said quickly, staring at the ground. She really didn't want to see Xephos or Honeydew's expressions. “I can't stay here. This is just too much...”

She coughed a bit, choking back tears. She had to get out of there and go back home. Hopefully nobody would follow her. Hopefully they would assume she wanted to be alone while she grieved for her brother.

“Lomadia,” Xephos started to say, but Lomadia didn't want to hear it. Instead, she turned and ran towards the forest, only teleporting back home when she got to the treeline.

She quickly ran into her room, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Lalna was still breathing. She also relaxed when she saw that Mr. Owl hadn't moved, meaning Lalna hadn't woken up.

Pulling up a chair, she sat down next to her brother. She saw that he was still deathly pale, and, lifting up the blanket a bit, she saw that his wounds had started bleeding through the bandages.

With a sigh, she took the cloth and dipped it again to cool it down, since it had heated up considerably after touching his fevered skin for so long. Then she dabbed at his face and neck for a while before realizing that it wasn't working, and his fever was still rising.

Lomadia sighed and pushed the hair out of her eyes. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was coming up. She also noticed the storm clouds on the horizon.

She started to think about what she could possibly do to get medicine for Lalna. It was difficult to make, and she wouldn't be able to give an honest answer about why she would trade for it. And besides, if she went out and bought or traded something for fever medicine, it would draw a lot of attention, some of which could be dangerous.

Her only option would be to steal it.

Suddenly, her train of thought was derailed when Lalna started coughing weakly. She looked down and saw that he was waking up, and it must have been the pain that triggered the coughing fit.

“Shh,” she whispered, brushing his hair back. “Remember, slow shallow breaths.”

Lalna nodded a bit, blinking his eyes open. He looked up at her, and his eyes immediately lit up with concern.

“Your eyes are red,” he said, his voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper. “Have you been crying?”

Lomadia couldn't help but smile. Even though Lalna was in severe pain and possibly dying, he was still looking after her.

“I'm fine,” she said. “It's just... I went to see what had happened to your castle for myself, and it was a lot to take it.”

Lalna gave a soft sigh and sadly looked out the window. “I don't know how I survived...” he said quietly. “I also don't know why Rythian attacked me. We had a truce... and I wasn't even bothering anybody... I was just... doing science...”

He closed his eyes, and for a minute, Lomadia thought he had fallen asleep.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“How bad is it?” he asked, sounding worried.

“What do you mean?” asked Lomadia. “How bad is what?”

“How bad am I hurt?” asked Lalna, his voice betraying the fear and pain he was experiencing.

Lomadia gulped. She had a feeling that Lalna would ask about his wounds, but she didn't expect him to ask so soon. Especially since it had only really been about half an hour since he got them.

Slowly, she pulled down the blanket, and Lalna looked down to see his bandaged torso. There were already splotches of blood seeping through the bandages over the wound on his stomach, and the little metal tube had a bit of blood leaking out of it. The deep wound next to it was still surprisingly not bleeding that much.

“These two are probably the worst wounds,” said Lomadia, pointing to the bloodstained area and the other wound on his upper chest. “I had to sew this one up because it was bleeding so much,” she said, pointing to the bloody wound on his stomach. “You lost a lot of blood, so you're gonna be dizzy for a while.”

“Okay,” said Lalna tiredly, still looking down at the bandages. “What about this?” he asked, pointing to the metal tube.

“I had to put that tube in because your lung collapsed,” she said. “You've got a pretty deep wound there that missed your heart by only a few centimeters. Whatever did it broke your rib and hit your lung, which is why it's hard for you to breathe.”

Lalna was quiet for a minute, and he remained unmoving, staring down at his chest. It was then that Lomadia realized he was remembering something.

“What is it?” she asked.

Lalna gently touched the area where the wound was. He winced a bit, but he kept his hand on his chest. “This was where he stabbed me,” he said. “The explosion did everything else, but I survived it. I landed on the cliff by the ocean. Then he stabbed me and pushed me off the cliff.”

Lomadia's eyes widened, both in shock at what Rythian had done and in horror at what Lalna had survived.

She also wondered what had suddenly possessed Rythian to do all of this.

Suddenly, Lalna started coughing and gasping for breath. Lomadia helped him sit up, and when he finally caught his breath, she ran and got him some water.

“Here, drink this,” she said, handing him the glass bottle.

Reluctantly, he slowly drank some of the water before handing the bottle back to Lomadia. It wasn't much, but at least it would help him a bit.

“Do you feel like you'd be able to eat anything?” she asked.

He shook his head, no, grimacing in pain as he did so. He started gasping for breath again, and this time he started grimacing in pain, and blood started to trickle out of his mouth.

Lomadia quickly stood up and gently grabbed Lalna's shoulder.

“Hold on,” she said. “This might hurt a bit...” Then, as gently as she could, she rolled him onto his side.

He actually let out a sharp scream of pain as the movement stressed his multiple wounds, but as soon as he was on his side, his breathing became less labored, and he didn't look to be in as much pain. Lomadia figured it must have also been uncomfortable for him to lay on his burnt and cut back. She also noticed that some of the wounds on his back had bled through the bandages, leaving the sheets where he had been laying a bit bloodstained. She felt no need to mention that, though.

“Is that better?” she asked, coming around to the other side of the bed so that she could talk to him face to face.

Lalna nodded. “H-how'd you know that would help?” he asked.

“I know from experience with Xephos that it's harder to breathe when you're on your back, especially if you have asthma... or in your case, an injured lung,” she said, pulling her chair around so that she could sit.

Lalna nodded weakly, starting to drift off again. He did mouth out something, but Lomadia didn't realize what he had said until he was asleep again.

He had said “thank you.”


	2. Fever

The rest of the day passed this way. Lalna slept restlessly, and Lomadia kept watch. She had to leave him alone a few times to go check on her owls and make sure they were ready for the storm, but other than that, she was at her brother's side.

Lalna only woke up a few times that day, mainly due to the pain he was experiencing. However, whenever he did wake up, Lomadia was there to calm him down and try and get him to at least drink something. He still wouldn't eat anything though, and she was worried about that too.

The storm hit at around noon, an enormous beast with tons of thunder and lightning and rain. It was around that time that Lomadia had to move Lalna onto his back again, mainly because he had started to cough up more blood. And even though it was a bit easier for him to breathe when he was on his side, there would be less blood getting into his lungs if he were on his back.

Throughout the day, his condition got progressively worse. It was mainly his fever, which was slowly but steadily rising. The fever was also making him feel sicker, so whenever he woke up, he would refuse to eat anything. Because of this, he wasn't healing at all.

The first real scare came that evening, just after sunset.

Lomadia was sitting in her chair, reading through an old medicine manual. She had been looking through various books all day, trying to find anything that would help with Lalna's fever. She had also been looking for medicines that she could make to help him, but all of the ones she found were extremely complicated and required a very high level of magical knowledge, which she didn't possess.

While she was reading, however, Lalna started to moan in pain. His breathing accelerated, his face contorted in pain, and he became impossibly paler.

Lomadia immediately started dabbing at his face with a cool cloth, but it didn't seem to calm him down.

Suddenly, his eyes opened, and he looked surprised for a moment. However, his shocked expression disappeared, and he let out a low groan, closing his eyes again and curling up on his side with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

“Lalna, what's wrong?” asked Lomadia quickly, knowing that his pain must be incredibly severe, due to the fact that he had curled up on his side without any assistance.

“It hurts...” he whimpered, looking up at her with wide and pain-filled eyes.

“Shh, it'll be okay,” she whispered, looking calm even though she was freaking out on the inside. What was it that was hurting him? From the looks of it, it was actually doing damage to him.

It wasn't until another wave of pain hit him and he actually screamed that Lomadia realized what was happening.

She had noticed when she was bandaging him that he was much skinnier than the last time she saw him, and it was because he had been neglecting his hunger. He hadn't eaten in so long that he was actually starving to death. The pain must have been made worse by his fever and various wounds.

Lomadia quickly stood up and ran into the other room. She returned a few seconds later with a bowl of mushroom stew.

She quickly forced Lalna onto his back before propping his head up. He was barely conscious, but he still managed to spew out a few curse words.

As carefully as she could, Lomadia force-fed him some of the stew. It wasn't near enough to let him start regenerating health, but it would at least make the pain go away and keep him from starving.

Halfway through the bowl, Lalna seemed to come back from his delirium.

“What the hell...?” he muttered, barely able to keep his eyes open.

“You were starving to death,” said Lomadia carefully. “Now do you want to finish the stew yourself, or do you want me to keep feeding you?”

Lalna glared and quickly took the bowl, determined to keep at least some independence and not let Lomadia baby him, even if it caused him pain. He quickly finished the bowl, even though he had to struggle to keep it down, seeing as it shocked his food-deprived system quite a bit.

Lomadia took the empty bowl and sit it on the bedside table, satisfied that she had managed to get some food into him and keep him from starving.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Better,” he lied, laying back and closing his eyes. He wasn't in pain from starving anymore, but now he was feeling nauseous. His stomach was twisting, mainly because the stew had shocked his system, and also because he had eaten it faster than he should have. He quickly closed his eyes and tried to focus on the painful task of breathing, but it wasn't helping. He must have moaned involuntarily, because he felt Lomadia's hand on his shoulder.

“Lalna, are you okay?” Her voice sounded so far away.

He started shivering as his fever rose, and the fever upset his stomach even more. He felt Lomadia dab at his face with a cool cloth, and it helped calm him down a bit and lower the fever some, but the uncomfortable sick feeling still remained.

Suddenly, it intensified.

Lalna lurched forward, convulsing a bit and crying out in agony as the action sent shards of pain through his various wounds.

Lomadia was shocked, but she reacted quickly and caught Lalna before he could fall back again. Holding him upright, she quickly moved so that she was behind him. Then she gently let him go so that he could lean back against her.

The poor scientist was painfully gasping for breath and moaning. His face was pale, and he was sweating a bit, most likely from the fever but also from the pain. His arms were wrapped around his stomach again.

That was when Lomadia realized that making him eat all of the stew may have been a bad idea. Now, not only was he nauseous because of all the blood he had swallowed, but because of the sudden input of food.

Lomadia was just thankful that she had a bucket in her inventory. She took it out and set it beside her, knowing that it was probably going to get messy very soon.

After a few tense minutes of silence, Lalna started to relax a bit. His eyes were closed, and his breathing had evened out more. It was still shallow and pained though.

Finally, Lomadia spoke up.

“Lalna, are you still awake?” she asked gently.

Slowly, he nodded. Some of his blond hair fell into his eyes when he did so, but Lomadia brushed it back out of his face.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Instead of responding, Lalna groaned, and his face twisted into a grimace.

“Lomadia...” he groaned, his face growing paler and his breathing accelerating. He curled up on himself more, trembling at the pain and discomfort.

Lomadia quickly grabbed the bucket and thrust it into his hands.

Two seconds later, he convulsed and started vomiting, skillfully managing to get every last drop in the bucket. He lost most of the stew, and the rest was blood.

Finally, the vomiting stopped, and Lalna tiredly fell back against Lomadia, exhausted.

Lomadia gently stroked his hair back out of his eyes. “It's okay,” she whispered, noticing that he was trembling. “It's over now.”

Lalna's only response was a small groan, signaling that he was either in pain, or he had slipped into delirium again.

Lomadia sighed a bit. It was going to be a long night.

**XXX**

As Lomadia predicted, she didn't get much sleep the rest of the night. Lalna would sleep restlessly for an hour or two before waking up, either from a fit of pain or because he couldn't breathe. 

Whenever he would wake up, Lomadia would try and get him to drink some water, just to calm him down and keep him hydrated. It would also help with his fever, which at one point got so high that he became delirious and started hallucinating. That was one of the more terrifying moments of the night, seeing Lalna paralyzed with fear at something she couldn't see. She had managed to snap him out of it by splashing a bit of cold water on his face, but it scared her. She knew that she would have to find something for his fever, or it would kill him.

Finally, an hour or two after midnight, Lalna slipped into a deeper sleep; his breathing slowed and he relaxed, looking peaceful for the first time since that morning. That was when Lomadia was finally able to sleep, exhausted from the stress of keeping Lalna alive.

When Lomadia woke up the next morning, Lalna was still asleep. She quickly ran outside to check on her owls, and by the time she returned, Lalna was awake.

“Good morning,” said Lomadia, smiling as she returned to her chair.

Lalna smiled weakly. He still looked exhausted and deathly pale, but at least his fever was down to a relatively safe temperature.

“How do you feel?” asked Lomadia.

“Better than I felt 24 hours ago,” he said quietly. “I mean, I'm still nauseous and in pain, but it isn't as bad...”

“Here,” said Lomadia, handing him a glass bottle filled with fresh water. “Drink something. It should help with the nausea. I'm gonna go out later and try and find some medicine for your fever.”

“I don't really think my fever is much of a problem,” said Lalna after taking a few sips of water. “I mean, it feels like it's going away.”

“I guess,” said Lomadia, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead and cheeks to check his temperature. He definitely wasn't as warm as the night before, and she just hoped that was a sign that he was healing.

It wasn't.

A few hours later, Lomadia left Lalna to take a nap and try to heal a bit, but when she came back half an hour later, she found him gasping for breath and thrashing in his sleep.

Rushing over to him, Lomadia felt that his fever was much higher than it had been half an hour earlier. She quickly got a cold wet cloth and started trying to cool him down, but it didn't seem to be working.

After thinking for a moment, Lomadia gently shook Lalna by the shoulder, waking him up.

“W-what...” he stammered, dizzily looking up at Lomadia with glassy eyes.

“Shh,” whispered Lomadia, stroking his hair back. “I'm gonna go find you some medicine. I shouldn't be gone for more than an hour. Will you be okay?”

Slowly, Lalna nodded.

“Okay,” said Lomadia. “I'm gonna leave Mr. Owl here to keep an eye on you. Just send him if you need me. He'll be able to find me.”

Again, Lalna nodded before closing his eyes and trying to focus on breathing.

Lomadia quickly ran out of the room. She looked through the chests in the other room and found a sword, along with a bit of food and a single potion of invisibility. She had no idea where that came from – maybe Nilesy – but she took it anyways.

Then she ran out the door.

XXX

Rythian stood at the edge of the clearing, looking up at the destroyed castle on the hill. A few of the walls had collapsed after Ridge got out, so the burnt and blackened ruins looked even worse.

Rythian wasn't exactly sure why he had come back to the castle. Maybe it was the nagging sensation in the back of his mind that he had missed something...

Suddenly, his magic told him that someone was coming. He quickly shielded himself so that he couldn't be detected, then he hid within the trees.

A minute later, someone flew overhead. Rythian was both surprised and worried when he saw that it was Ridge.

Ridge flew up to the castle, where he stopped for a moment before slowly hovering over the ruins, as if he were looking for something.

Rythian became nervous. Ridge was suspicious, which meant he would start to investigate what had happened. He assumed that he was already a suspect in Ridge's mind, and he couldn't let himself get caught right next to the castle.

As quietly as he could, he turned and ran deeper into the forest, only teleporting back to the desert once he was far enough away from the castle that Ridge wouldn't notice.

Rythian found himself standing outside of his and Zoeya's house. He walked for the door, but as soon as he reached it, it opened and Zoeya came out, running right into Rythian.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Zoeya, shocked at Rythian's sudden appearance. “Rythian, where have you been?”

“I was a bit further out in the desert practicing a bit of new magic,” he lied smoothly. “Where are you going?”

“Teep and I were gonna go check on Xephos and Honeydew; y'know, see if they're okay,” said Zoeya. “Do you want to come?”

Rythian thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I better not,” he said.

“Why not?” asked Zoeya. “I mean, it's not like you killed him.”

“I know,” said Rythian, a bit nervous at Zoeya's last comment, especially because he detected a bit of suspicion under her usual sarcasm. However, he managed to keep his voice steady. “I want to come, but Xephos and Honeydew know that I didn't like Lalna. In fact, they probably think it was me that rigged his reactor to explode or something.”

“Alright,” said Zoeya. “Wait, how did you know it was his reactor?”

“I heard Ridge talking to Xephos and Honeydew. That's what he thinks it was.”

Zoeya nodded a bit. She had seen how much damage Lalna's reactor had caused when it melted down in the Old World, and she could see how it could have caused the damage.

At that point, Teep came bounding over, and Zoeya remembered what she had been doing in the first place.

“Okay, we should be back soon,” she said to Rythian. He nodded, and she and Teep took off running towards the Jaffa Factory.

Once they reached the factory a while later, however, they could tell something was wrong.

Everything was dead silent. All of the noises from the machines had stopped. Even the animals were silent.

Zoeya looked around. For several minutes, she didn't move, but when she saw a bit of movement in one of the buildings, she went towards it.

After a moment of hesitation, she knocked on the door.

“Hello?” she called. “Is anybody home?”

A few seconds later, the door opened. Honeydew was standing on the other side, looking exhausted and pale. He had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, and he looked ready to collapse.

“Do you know anything about healing?” he asked immediately, his voice hoarse.

Zoeya became worried. “I... I'm not sure what you mean...”

Honeydew opened the door all the way and gestured for her to come in. She followed him, and Teep waited outside the door.

When she was inside, she quickly took in her surroundings. She noticed several chests, along with a couple beds. She saw that the two beds on one side of the room were labeled. One of them was marked as Xephos' bed, and she was hit with a wave of sadness when she saw that the other bed had belonged to Lalna, according to the sign. Sitting on Lalna's bed was a very depressed and sad looking chicken, who she recognized as Ms. Clucky.

Then she turned to face the other side of the room. The first thing she noticed was Honeydew's oversized bed. The next thing she noticed was Xephos, who was lying unconscious on the bed.

He looked like he was already dead. His eyes were closed, his skin was a sickly pale color, and it looked like he wasn't even breathing. She also noticed that he looked thinner than before. And even more alarming was the fact that his lips were blue.

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “What's wrong with him?!”

“He had an asthma attack and passed out when we were coming back yesterday, and he hasn't woken up yet!” exclaimed Honeydew, looking like he was ready to start crying. “I was afraid to leave him to go get help.”

Zoeya quickly knelt down next to the unconscious spaceman. She lowered her ear to his chest; she could hear his heart beating weakly and rapidly. She quickly sat back and gently pressed two fingers to his throat.

“From what I can tell, his throat is nearly completely closed up,” she said quickly. “He's suffocating.”

“Is there anything you can do?” asked Honeydew, who was on the verge of hysteria.

Zoeya was quiet for a moment before standing up. “I'll be right back” she said quickly. “I do have something that can help him.” Then she turned and sprinted out the door, yelling over her shoulder for Teep to stand guard.

**XXX**

Lomadia had been on her way to see Xephos and Honeydew, both to check on them and also see if they had any medicine. However, she arrived at the same time as Zoeya and Teep.

Ducking behind a tree to avoid being seen, Lomadia quickly gulped down the potion of invisibility. Then she came out from behind the tree and quietly moved towards the two.

When Honeydew opened the door, Lomadia snuck in right behind Zoeya, just barely avoiding being noticed by Teep.

The state Xephos was in shocked her. She stood back and watched as Zoeya tried to diagnose what was wrong with him, and she felt the urge to go help. However, she knew she couldn't show herself. It hurt, because at that moment, there was nothing she wanted to do more than go to Xephos and hug him and kiss him and tell him that it was all going to be okay, and that Lalna was still alive.

But she couldn't.

Suddenly, her interest was spiked when she heard Zoeya say that she had something that could help.

When Zoeya ran out, Lomadia moved forward a bit, doing her best to stay silent.

Honeydew didn't seem to notice that there was someone else in the room with him. All of his attention was focused on his best friend.

“Oh gods, Xeph please don't die...” whispered Honeydew, quickly wiping his eyes of the tears that had started to form. “Please don't die, please don't die, please don't die...” He whispered it over and over again, almost to the point where he was chanting it.

Suddenly, the door opened again and Zoeya ran back in. She was carrying a small glass jar in her hands. The little jar contained what looked like the dusty shreds of herbs, and there was a little label on the front that read “arka.”

Zoeya carefully set the jar down on the table before looking up at Honeydew.

“Do you have any bowls?” she asked quickly.

“Hold on,” he said, quickly jumping up and running over to the crafting table in the corner of the room. He quickly made four bowls and tossed them to Zoeya.

Using the bowls, Zoeya quickly made several bowls of mushroom stew. She took one of them and set them on the table. Then, she took the lid off the jar and sprinkled some of the “arka” herbs into the stew.

“Here, feed him this,” she said, handing Honeydew the stew before gently lifting Xephos' head.

Honeydew spooned a few bits of the stew into Xephos' mouth, then he carefully tilted his head back so that he would swallow it.

It took a minute, but the second Xephos swallowed the stew, he immediately started gasping for breath, coughing and panting as the swelling in his throat receded and oxygen flooded his system.

At that point, everyone in the room, including Lomadia, let out the breath they had been holding. It was all going to be okay. Xephos was breathing again. He was going to survive.

“What was that stuff?” asked Honeydew as he carefully fed Xephos a bit more of the stew, which resulted in the blue tinge in his lips disappearing.

“They were herbs that have properties that treat asthma,” said Zoeya, looking at the bottle. “I took it from the sick bay by our house. They've got loads of medicines.”

Lomadia's eyes widened, both with hope and fear. She now knew where she could get the medicine that would help Lalna.

The only problem was that she would have to steal it from Rythian...

**XXX**

Lomadia wanted to stay a bit longer to make sure Xephos would be okay, but she noticed that her potion was about to run out. Also, she had to go back and check on Lalna. After all, Xephos had Honeydew and Zoeya with him, but Lalna was alone.

As carefully as she could, she slipped out the door, which Zoeya had left open when she ran in. She saw Teep about ten meters away, using a bow to snipe some fish in a nearby pond, so she didn't have to worry about him.

She just barely managed to make it out of sight before her potion ran out. Then she started to jog back in the direction of her home, trying to get enough distance to teleport without alerting anybody.

Suddenly, something swooped down in front of her. She screeched to a stop and gasped in fear.

It was Mr. Owl.

His appearance could only mean one thing.

Her heart racing, Lomadia held out her arm, and Mr. Owl landed on it. She immediately teleported home, not caring if anyone was around to hear.

She landed in front of her house. Mr. Owl, who was put off by the sudden teleport, quickly flew off.

Lomadia sprinted inside, not bothering to close the door behind her. She ran into her room and went to the bed.

Lalna was lying completely still. He was unhealthily pale, and his eyes were closed. He wasn't breathing.

Lomadia quickly knelt down and laid her head on his chest.

No heartbeat.

“Oh gods oh gods oh gods....” she muttered, trying to keep herself from panicking.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself down, she started to preform CPR, pressing down on his chest five times before giving him a breath. Nothing happened, so she continued.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

Still nothing.

She was starting to shake. Her vision was clouded with tears.

Still, she continued. She refused to let him die, especially when she had been so close to saving him.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

By now, tears were streaming down her face.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

She found herself whispering the word “please” over and over again.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

It wasn't working.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.

One...

She stopped.

She realized that it was no use. He was gone.

Slowly, she sank to her knees and laid her head down on the bed next to him. She started sobbing.

Because her head was down, she didn't see the shadow that manifested on the opposite side of the bed.

The shadowy figure stood quietly, watching for a moment. What appeared to be its hands were clasped behind its back, and it stood straight with its head held high.

Slowly, after what appeared to be a moment of debate, the figure reached out one of its hands. It leaned forward, hovering off the floor a bit, and it gently placed its hand on Lalna's chest. A small purple spark passed through its hand and into Lalna. Then, after a moment, the shadow disappeared.

A few seconds later, Lalna's heart started beating. He shakily took a breath.

Lomadia gasped and looked up, not believing her eyes. Lalna was breathing again! 

He was alive.

Lomadia sat back and breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the tears from her eyes and face. However, she started to get worried again. What was it that had caused his heart to stop? Her best guess was that it was his fever.

Gently, she reached out and pressed her hand against his cheeks. His fever was still burning, confirming her suspicions. 

With a sigh, she pulled up the chair she had knocked over when she came in and resumed her watch.

She had to steal medicine from Rythian's domain.

And she had a plan.


	3. The Thief

It was a few hours after the incident with Lalna that Lomadia realized the flaw in her plan to steal the medicine.

The plan required her to be able to see in the dark, but she didn't have any night vision potions or goggles.

She knew where she could possibly find them, though.

After making sure that Lalna was awake – he had no memory of the incident or what had caused it – and as well as possible, and Mr. Owl was on watch, she left again. She headed right for the remains of the castle.

Teleporting in, she found herself on the edge of the clearing. Glancing around, she didn't see anybody, so she carefully began to trek up towards the ruins.

She continuously scanned the ground, looking for the goggles. She knew that they had been attached to Lalna's helmet, which had most likely survived the explosion. Now all she had to do was find it.

Because she was scanning the ground, she didn't notice the figure standing on the remains of one of the walls until she was only meters away.

Looking up, she gasped when she saw Ridge, mainly surprised at his sudden appearance.

“Hello, Lomadia,” said Ridge calmly. He wasn't facing her, though; he was looking at the ruins, standing tall on the wall with his hands clasped behind his back. Lomadia noticed that both his hands were bandaged.

“Um, hey Ridge,” she said nervously. She, along with everyone else besides Xephos and Lalna, had always been slightly scared of the mysterious man. “W-what are you doing...?” she asked.

“Join me up here and I'll tell you,” said Ridge smoothly, still not looking back at Lomadia.

She gulped, but she didn't really have a choice. Carefully, she climbed up on the short wall and stood next to Ridge.

From this new perspective, she could see the remains of the castle foundations, scattered with burnt wood and shattered bricks and science artifacts all over the place. It looked much worse from this angle.

“I was flying over a bit earlier, and I noticed something,” explained Ridge, standing comfortably on the narrow ledge. “Lalna surrounded his reactor with water and hardened glass. Even if it had exploded, it only would have taken out the top of the tower it was on. Also, I've looked at some of the reactors he's built. He's a wonderful scientist, and he definitely knows what he's doing. There's no possible way the reactor would have exploded on its own without being sabotaged.”

“So...” said Hannah carefully, “you're saying someone sabotaged his reactor?”

Ridge glanced sidelong at her, his dark eyes showing amusement. 

“It's possible,” he said, looking back out at the carnage. “But it's also possible that the reactor was destroyed along with the castle by a nuke.”

Lomadia's eyes widened a bit, but she didn't say anything.

“Now,” continued Ridge, “I know for a fact that Lalna hasn't been experimenting with high explosives for a while. I've been keeping a close eye on him to make sure he wasn't. So it wasn't one of his own explosives backfiring on him.

“Also, I know how destructive a nuke is. If the nuke that hit his castle had hit right in the center of the courtyard, then the entire castle would have been obliterated and there would have been nothing left but a smoking crater, and Lalna wouldn't have survived. The nuke either missed and hit the top tower, or it exploded in the air above the castle, which is why there wasn't an enormous crater. Because of this, we know that whoever launched the missile wasn't a professional, meaning they either didn't know how to make and launch missiles properly, or they hated science in general. Since almost everybody around here knows how to at least _aim_ a nuke, and all but one of those who don't know have never wanted Lalna dead, this would rule out everybody except Rythian.

“That's why I told Xephos and Honeydew that it was his reactor that exploded. To keep them safe from Rythian and whatever demon is possessing him to do all of this.”

Lomadia was speechless for a moment. Ridge knew that Lalna was still alive. He knew that it was Rythian who had nuked the castle. And he knew that she had been hiding Lalna.

“I know you already know this,” said Ridge casually, “but I figured you would like to know how I figured it out.”

Lomadia found herself unable to respond. Ridge knew about everything, but he hadn't come to help her?

That was when she realized she was wrong. She saw that his eyes were glassy and he looked a bit tired. The only time he ever looked remotely tired was after using his powers.

He _had_ been helping.

“It was you, wasn't it?” she asked quietly. “A few hours ago. You brought him back to life.”

Ridge shrugged. “It was a simple Galvanic spark, just to restart his heart. Like I said before, if I found the body I could bring him back.”

“If you knew this whole time, then why didn't you just come up and say so?” asked Lomadia. “I could have used your help.”

“Oh, I'll be there when you _really_ need my help,” he said smoothly. “Now weren't you looking for something?”

Lomadia raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

Ridge didn't answer. Instead, he turned to face her, and he held something out to her.

It was the pair of night vision goggles.

“Good luck,” he said, smiling a bit before turning and disappearing into the lengthening shadows.

**XXX**

Night fell quickly. Lomadia stood looking out the window. She was wearing a black hoodie, her hair was in a ponytail, and she had her running shoes on. She also had a sword and a bow, which she hoped she wouldn't have to use.

With a nervous sigh, she turned and went back to her chair by the bed. Lalna's condition had gotten worse; his fever was much higher, almost to the point where it would be lethal. He was quietly muttering in his sleep, delirious from the heat.

If Lomadia didn't get the medicine, he was going to die.

She replaced the wet cloth on his neck with a new cold one, then she added more ice to the makeshift ice pack on his head. Hopefully this would keep him cool enough until she returned with the medicine.

It also helped that Ridge was standing in the corner of the room watching. He wasn't visible of course, but Lomadia had noticed how that corner of the room was darker than before.

Lomadia looked at the clock on the wall. It was two in the morning. She knew it was time.

Slowly, she stood. She leaned over and gently kissed her brother on the cheek, just in case she didn't make it back in time. Then, standing tall, she put on the goggles, pulled her hood up, and teleported.

She landed in the very outskirts of the desert, far enough away to not be detected, yet close enough to get there on foot. There was always the danger that the mobs would get her, but frankly, she was more afraid of Rythian than the Creepers.

As quietly as she could, she ran towards the village, which she could see a while away.

Ducking and weaving to avoid drawing the attention of the mobs scattered about, she ran towards the little village. After a few minutes, she made it and quickly ducked inside one of the buildings after using the heat vision addition on the goggles to make sure no one was inside.

Looking around, she saw that she was in a large room with several beds by the wall. There was another door that she assumed led to a back room.

As quietly as she could, she snuck into the back room, taking care to open the door slowly. Inside, she found loads of chests lined up against the wall.

Quickly switching back to the heat vision, she looked in the direction of Rythian's house. She could see three glowing figures; one was cold, and she assumed that was Teep; one had a normal temperature, and she could tell that was Zoeya. The last figure was Rythian. She could tell it was him because his heat signature was glowing much brighter than any normal human's would.

None of them looked awake.

Taking a deep breath, Lomadia turned back to the chests and began to carefully rifle through them. Whatever Ridge had done to the goggles, she really appreciated it, because he added an onscreen text that would read the labels on the medicine and tell her what they cured.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of searching, she found a small glass bottle labeled “yarrow.” It was filled with a glassy purple liquid, and according to the text, it was specifically mixed to lower high fevers.

She quickly stored the bottle safely in her inventory. Then, after a very heated internal debate, she took a few syringes, knowing fully well that Lalna would throw up anything he swallowed.

After thinking for a moment, she also located a couple small bottles of disinfectant and another bottle with a powdery herb in it that, according to the text, would help with nausea.

Now that she had her stash, she was ready to haul ass back home.

She quickly switched the goggles to heat vision.

Then she realized that Rythian had moved. He was now awake, and he was close to the building she was hiding in.

Lomadia felt her blood freeze. Had he heard her, or had his inner Enderman simply sensed her? It didn't matter. What mattered was that he was coming her way.

Quickly, she held her breath and hid in the corner of the back room, just as she heard the outside door open.

Looking with her heat vision, she saw Rythian poke his head in and look around. He seemed to stay for hours, which in reality was only minutes, before slowly leaving and closing the door behind him.

Lomadia watched him as he left, not daring to breathe until he was back in his house.

Quickly, she stood up and slipped through the doors. Crouching to avoid being seen, she moved quickly through the narrow alleys between the buildings.

She was almost out when she heard a voice.

“Hey!”

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, whipping around to see a very pissed off Rythian at the far end of the alley, his purple eyes glowing in the darkness.

She just barely had time to duck before a blast of magic flew past her head, exploding against the wall behind her.

Shocked, she didn't have time to avoid the second blast. This one skimmed across her left arm, cutting her just below the elbow.

Gasping, she ducked behind a wall, keeping a hand over the cut, which was stinging and painful.

She could hear Rythian's footsteps. He was getting closer.

Then, for the first time in her life, she was saved by a Creeper.

She heard a hiss followed shortly by Rythian cursing and an explosion. 

Taking the opportunity, she turned and ran, unable to teleport due to the fact that Rythian would be able to follow the jump scar left by the teleport, meaning he would be able to follow her.

She ran as fast as she could, and she could hear the sounds of Rythian running behind her, gaining ground.

Then she rounded another corner and was faced with a skeleton.

The skeleton fired an arrow, and she ducked out of the way, just as Rythian came around the corner behind her.

The arrow hit him in the shoulder, and he dropped, hiding back behind the wall.

Running forward, Lomadia quickly dispatched the skeleton before taking off back into the desert, knowing that Rythian was wounded and he wouldn't follow her.

Once she was far enough out, she teleported back home.

The landing was a bit rough, and she nearly fell over, but she quickly regained her balance and ran into her room.

Lalna was unconscious, and his fever was quickly killing him. He was pale and sweaty and gasping for breath.

The dark shadow from the corner of the room had manifested itself into Ridge, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed looking worried. He had his hand pressed against Lalna's forehead. His hand was glowing slightly blue.

“Hurry,” was all he said.

Quickly collapsing in the chair, Lomadia pulled the fever medicine and a syringe out of her inventory, wincing at the sight of the needle.

“10 milliliters,” said Ridge.

Lomadia nodded, not looking up, and quickly drew the dose out of the bottle and into the syringe. Then she carefully jabbed the needle into his arm and pressed down the plunger.

Pulling out the needle and quickly putting it to the side, Lomadia sat back and waited apprehensively. 

It took a few minutes, but Lalna finally relaxed and started breathing a bit easier. Ridge nodded a bit, signaling that his fever was going down.

“Give him a dose every six hours until the fever is gone,” said Ridge, standing back.

Lomadia nodded and looked up at him, but he had already disappeared.

She was left with the words “thank you” waiting to be said.

**XXX**

Ridge didn't return to his base after leaving Lomadia and Lalna. Instead, he teleported to Rythian's home.

Drifting invisible through the rafters, he looked down curiously at the scene below him.

Rythian was lying propped up on his bed. There was an arrow sticking out of his left shoulder, and his left leg between his knee and ankle was badly burnt. Zoeya was sitting next to him, looking like she had just woken up.

“Okay, hold on,” she said as she bandaged his leg. “Just let this heal naturally. It's not bad, so don't waste your magic on it.”

Rythian didn't respond. He simply sat propped up with his eyes closed, forcing himself to breathe deeply. Ridge noticed how he was gripping the bed sheets so hard that his knuckles had turned white.

“Alright, here we go,” said Zoeya as she finished bandaging his leg. She moved to a different position and carefully took hold of the arrow shaft. Rythian grimaced when she did, but he still didn't say anything.

“Okay, this might sting a bit,” she said before pulling the arrow out.

Ridge actually winced at some of the words Rythian let fly. Some of the words he didn't even say in English.

“Oh, that's not good,” muttered Zoeya, noticing that the tip of the arrowhead hadn't come out. “I'll be right back.”

She quickly set the bloody arrow down and ran out the door.

Using the opportunity to get a bit closer, Ridge looked carefully at the Mage. He was pale, his eyes were closed, and he looked like he was going to pass out. He couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him, but also glad that he was hurt as well.

Then he noticed something.

For just a split second, he thought he saw what looked like black smoke start to leak out of the arrow wound.

However, Zoeya came running back in, and the smoke quickly disappeared. She was holding two small bottles, a syringe, and a scalpel and tweezers.

She took a small dose of one of the liquid medicines in the syringe and injected it into Rythian's arm.

“That should help with the pain,” she said. “Now just hold tight. This shouldn't hurt now, but it's not gonna be pretty.”

Ridge winced a bit when Zoeya cut a slit across the arrow wound and started digging around inside with the tweezers. Rythian didn't react much, mainly because of the medicine.

Finally, Zoeya found the missing tip and pulled it out.

“There we go,” she said, setting the tip to the side. “All better.”

She used the second bottle of medicine and poured a bit on a cloth. As she started cleaning the wound with the cloth, Rythian finally opened his eyes.

“Thanks Zoeya,” he said quietly. Zoeya nodded.

This was followed by silence for a minute, and Ridge was about to leave when Rythian started to speak again.

“Did you figure out what they took?” he asked. “The thief?”

“From the looks of it, they only took a few bottles of medicine,” said Zoeya, finishing cleaning the wound and moving on to bandage it.

“It doesn't make sense though,” said Rythian thoughtfully. “Why would they come here just to steal medicine? I mean, who would even need it at the moment?”

“Xephos needed some earlier today,” said Zoeya. “Maybe somebody else got sick and didn't have the time to trade.”

“Still...” muttered Rythian. Suddenly, he got a distant look in his eyes, and Ridge knew that he was starting to suspect the truth.

Rythian obviously didn't know it had been Lomadia, and if he did, he would have said something. But maybe he was beginning to think it was someone else.

Ridge was familiar with Rythian's abilities. He knew he could see fairly well in the dark thanks to his inner Enderman. He had probably only caught a glimpse of Lomadia's face.

Then he realized what Rythian might have seen.

Lomadia had been wearing goggles. Rythian had been paranoid about Lalna. If he had seen the blond hair and goggles, would he start to believe that it had been Lalna? Or would he realize that it had been Lomadia, and that she had been stealing the medicine for Lalna, since he would logically be the only one who needed it?

Ridge couldn't be sure, but either way, he figured Rythian would soon try and find out for himself what had happened.

And if he went snooping, he would probably find out what had really happened.

After a moment of deliberation, Ridge teleported himself back and found himself hovering over Lomadia's house.

Using an old spell called the Mist, he carefully put something of a magical shield over Lomadia's entire house. All it would do was keep Rythian from seeing Lalna by using magic to look through the walls. As long as Lalna stayed inside the house, Rythian wouldn't be able to find him.

“I swear,” muttered Ridge, feeling a bit drained from the extensive use of his powers in such a short amount of time, “this is the last time I get mixed up in something like this...”

**XXX**

About two hours after Lalna got the medicine, he woke up. He blinked a bit, confused at how clear his mind was. Then he noticed several glass bottles with medical labels on them, and he realized Lomadia must have somehow gotten him some medicine. He had no idea where from though.

Speaking of Lomadia, she was asleep, her head resting on the bed by his arm. He smiled a bit, and he was going to leave her be and go back to sleep, but then he noticed the cut on her arm. The area around the cut was swollen and red.

Painfully shifting a bit, he looked closer at the wound. It was small – only a few inches long – and it wasn't very deep... so why hadn't it healed yet?

Lalna gently shook her shoulder to wake her up, but she didn't stir.

Now Lalna was starting to get worried. “Lomadia?” he asked nervously. “Can you hear me?” He shook her shoulder a bit harder.

After a moment, Lomadia shifted a bit and blinked her eyes open for a second before closing them again. However, Lalna had seen that she had a dark glaze over her eyes, nearly turning them black.

It was magic that he recognized.

Ender magic.

He looked back at the cut on her arm and identified it as the source of the curse, since it radiated the most magic.

He debated for a moment. What he was about to do was something he promised himself he would never do again.

Looking around the room, he made sure that no one was watching. Then, he focused on the cut on Lomadia's arm. He gently placed his fingers around the cut, muttered something under his breath, and a minute later, his eyes started to glow purple.

What looked like dark purple liquid began to ooze out of the wound, but instead of dripping down Lomadia's arm, it floated up and hovered above the palm of Lalna's hand. Finally, all the goop was out, and Lalna pulled his hand away, taking the stuff with him. His eyes slowly began to return to their normal emerald green.

He was exhausted from using Ender magic for the first time in a while; in fact, he felt his nose start to bleed. But that didn't really matter to him. Laying back, he looked at Lomadia, who looked to be sleeping more naturally now. The cut was visibly healing, not even leaving a scar.

Relieved that it had worked, Lalna looked at the small bit of magic hovering above his hand. Reaching up, he held it suspended between both hands before carefully spreading his hands, pulling the bit of magic open so that it was laid out like a piece of paper. It was covered in ancient runes that almost nobody could read anymore. However, he did know a way.

Reluctantly, he looked down at his chest. He had been using magic to hide it and protect it this whole time, but now he needed to take it off. He carefully let the spell slip away, and a silver amulet with a glowing purple crystal appeared around his neck.

Reluctantly, he pulled the amulet off and set it down next to him on the bed.

Almost instantly, his night vision returned. His vision sharped, and his hearing and sense of smell did as well. He got the urge to go kill a pig and eat its meat, and the condensation from the ice pack on his head started to sting, so he quickly pulled it off.

He was very familiar with Ender magic. Mainly because he himself was part Enderman.

He really hoped that Lomadia didn't wake up and see him at the moment, especially because he looked so different with black hair and purple eyes.

The runes on the pages instantly became readable. He saw that this particular bit of magic was a sleeping spell that would get exponentially worse as time went on. It was a good thing he had caught it and removed it when he did.

Then he saw that it was Rythian that had created the curse.

He was filled with rage at the thought of Rythian hurting his sister. In fact, he started trembling, and his claws emerged from the tips of his fingers. However, before he could do anything he would regret, he quickly put the amulet back on, and his claws, black hair, and purple eyes disappeared. He reactivated the spell, and the amulet disappeared from view. Then he quickly clasped his hands together, extinguishing the sleeping spell.

After he calmed down, though, he realized that Lomadia had stolen the medicine from Rythian, which was where she had gotten the cut. He couldn't help but be impressed that she had managed to do it.

It took a few minutes after that, but he did manage to fall back asleep.

As he drifted off, however, he found himself thinking that he was lucky nobody had seen his Ender self.

Little did he know, Ridge had been standing in the corner of the room the whole time. And for the first time in a very long time, he actually felt a bit afraid of the monster that Lalna had been hiding.


	4. The Threat

Rythian hovered silently over Owl Island. It had only been a day since the thief had stolen from him, and he was still wounded from the explosion and the skeleton. However, he just had to check and make sure...

He could have sworn that the thief had been none other than Lalna himself. But that was impossible. He was dead.

But he still remembered that fleeting glance he had caught. The blond hair and goggles? Stealing medicine? Who else could it have been?

Rythian was both impressed and worried that Lalna had actually survived and was on his feet again within a day, stealing medicine for himself.

And then there was the second possibility. That it had been Lomadia stealing medicine for Lalna so that he could recover from the explosion and the knife wound.

That scenario made more sense, but it still didn't explain how Lalna survived, or where he was. After all, hovering above Owl Island and scanning the area with his magic, he saw no signs of the scientist. The only one he could see was Lomadia, and she was moving around and taking care of her owls.

But there was something strange. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was almost as if he couldn't focus his magic on the house.

It couldn't be the Mist... could it? Lomadia was smart, but she was no sorcerer. He didn't know if it was the Mist, but it made him suspicious.

Maybe he should investigate.

Stealthily flying down, he landed about five meters behind Lomadia before letting himself become visible.

When Lomadia turned around a second later, she jumped back and let out a sharp surprised cry.

“Christ, Rythian!” she exclaimed, taking a deep breath. “You scared the hell out of me!”

“Apologies,” said Rythian, holding up his hands and putting on his act. “I just wanted to come by and check on you. See how you were doing.”

Lomadia's eyes darkened. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me,” she said.

Rythian took a cautious step back. “Look, I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear condolences from-”

“Then why did you come?” she asked sharply.

“Well... I heard what happened to Xephos, and I wanted to make sure something similar hadn't happened to you,” he said smoothly.

“I went and saw Xephos yesterday,” she said. “He's fine, and so am I. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone.”

Rythian nodded, looking down to attempt to look respectful. However, he was looking at her arm. He remembered hitting the thief in the arm with a sleeping spell, and it would have left a scar unless removed by a professional wizard. That particular spell also required a knowledge of Ender magic to fully remove.

Lomadia was wearing short sleeves, but he could see no scar.

So she hadn't been the one stealing medicine from him.

“I'll leave you be,” he said. “Sorry for disturbing you. And... sorry for your loss.” With that, he turned and teleported away.

Lomadia stood still for a moment before breathing a sigh of relief. She turned and quickly went and finished tending to her owls before darting inside.

As soon as she got inside, she stopped.

She could smell blood.

Quickly, she ran into her room, and what she saw nearly gave her a heart attack.

Lalna was sitting upright on the bed, half of which was covered in blood. He was pale and grimacing in pain.

It was his left leg that was bleeding. Lalna was awkwardly bend over it, holding a scalpel and a pair of tweezers in his hands. Lomadia was so shocked that it took her a moment to realize that he was operating on himself.

“Lalna!” she exclaimed after a moment. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Fixing my leg,” he replied simply.

“I don't think cutting it up any more will fix it!” she exclaimed, nearly to the point where she was shouting. “What the hell are you even supposed to be _fixing_?!”

“Calm down,” he said. “I'm trying to fix my Achilles' tendon. It got partially severed by the shrapnel, so I'm using a prosthetic nerve transmitter to fix it. That way I'll be able to actually move my foot.”

Lomadia couldn't speak for a minute. “Why... why don't you just let it heal naturally, or use a healing spell or something?!”

“Because there was no guarantee that it would have healed properly,” he said, still focusing on his leg. “Also, healing tendons and nerves and other internal organs is complicated, and I am not the best at healing spells unless it's an emergency and I'm not the one who needs healing.”

He readjusted something that Lomadia couldn't see, which just caused a bit more blood to flow.

“And besides,” he said, “this is much easier than cutting off my entire foot and replacing it with a prosthetic. You have no idea how hard it is to make yourself a new limb.”

He reached over and picked up a threaded needle. That was when Lomadia decided to turn her back before she threw up.

A few minutes later, Lalna spoke up.

“Okay, needle's gone,” he said, almost jokingly.

Lomadia turned around and came over to him. She was surprised to see that he was healing his leg with magic. After the wounds had shrunken back to what they were before his makeshift operation, he pulled out the needle and thread again – much to Lomadia's chagrin – and sewed up the cut, cleaning it with the disinfectant that Lomadia had gotten.

“That should work,” he said, painfully sitting back as Lomadia took some bandages and reapplied them to his leg. “Sorry about getting blood everywhere...”

“It's fine,” said Lomadia, even though the sight of all the blood was making her queasy. “Wait a second, where did you get a prosthetic nerve thingy?”

“I made it,” said Lalna as he experimentally flexed his left ankle. “There we go, working fine.”

Lomadia simply shook her head in disbelief. “Where exactly did you get the parts to make it?”

“I had some spare gadgets in my inventory,” said Lalna, his hand drifting up to cover the knife wound. “And I kind of... improvised.”

Lomadia narrowed her eyes. “What did you take?”

“Nothing important!” exclaimed Lalna.

Lomadia's expression didn't change. “Hold up your hands,” she instructed.

Lalna gulped, but he reluctantly did as he was told.

Lomadia didn't even look at his hands. Instead she looked at what he had been trying to hide, which was the knife wound. She saw that some of the bandages were torn open and slightly bloodstained. Leaning forward and looking, she saw that the metal tube was missing.

“You didn't seriously take the thing that was keeping your lung from collapsing and use it to fix your leg, did you?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“No, it's fine!” exclaimed Lalna, quickly Holding up his hands as if to reassure her. “I checked. There wasn't any danger of it collapsing again!”

Lomadia raised an eyebrow. “You mean... you're actually healing?”

Lalna quickly nodded.

Lomadia was quiet. She did notice that he was breathing easier, and he hardly looked like he was in pain. He was still pale, his eyes were glassy, and his fever had yet to break, but from the looks of it, he was healing.

It looked like things were finally improving.

**XXX**

After visiting Owl Island, Rythian hadn't teleported home. Instead, he had teleported to the castle remains.

As he hovered over the ruins, he thought about what had just happened.

While he had been talking to Lomadia, he had been focusing all of his magic at trying to see through the Mist. He hadn't managed to see anything though, except a sliver of Ender magic, which was probably just an Enderman in a cave under her house.

No sign of Lalna, and it wasn't Lomadia that stole the medicine, since she didn't have a scar on her arm. So what was going on?

And if Lalna was actually still alive, where was he hiding?

That was the reason he was at the castle now. He was scanning the area with his magic. Apparently, there were a few underground parts of the castle that had avoided being annihilated, but none of them showed signs of life.

With a frustrated sigh, Rythian flew backwards a bit.

Then he bumped into someone.

His first thought was “How could I possibly bump into someone when I'm fifty meters in the air?!”

His second thought was simply “Oh shit...”

He slowly turned around and was shocked to see Ridge hovering just behind him.

“Well what do we have here?” asked Ridge, his voice smooth and cold.

Rythian looked around uncertainly, doing his best to avoid Ridge's cold, knowing gaze. “W-what do you mean...?” he asked carefully.

“I'm just curious,” said Ridge, his frozen expression not changing as he slowly drifted closer to the nervous Mage. “Don't you think you've caused enough trouble? Shouldn't you be doing everything in your limited power to avoid this place?”

Rythian gulped, feeling his blood run cold at the knowledge that Ridge saw through the ruse.

“I... I was just...” he stammered, his heart racing in his chest.

“Just what?” asked Ridge, drifting closer still. “Admiring your work? Wondering if there was any evidence that could lead back to you? You tried to make it look like an accident, didn't you?”

Ridge was getting closer, and his eyes were beginning to glow slightly red.

“Do you know how much trouble you've caused?” demanded Ridge, raising his voice. His stone cold gaze melted away to reveal anger. “Why did you do this?! There wasn't any trouble! Nobody was fighting, but you singlehandedly broke the truce that _you_ created.

“This started something big, and I can guarantee that you will not like the outcome. In fact, you might not even survive to see what happens...”

Suddenly, Ridge shot forward and grabbed Rythian by the throat. Rythian gasped for breath, grabbing Ridge's arm and trying desperately to pry his hand loose.

“You shouldn't have come here,” he snarled, glaring at him with such anger that Rythian felt like he was going to start burning. “You shouldn't be bothering anybody. You've already uprooted enough lives with your paranoia.”

Rythian was starting to get tunnel vision, but Ridge's words rang loud and clear in his head.

“I suggest you go home and keep your head down until everyone can find it in themselves to forgive you.”

Rythian's vision went completely black, and Ridge's voice became distant.

“If I find you snooping around again, I will personally end you...”

A moment later, Rythian lost consciousness.

**XXX**

By the time Rythian woke up again, it was already dark. Somehow, he was in his own bed again.

Looking around, he saw that he was alone. He couldn't remember what Zoeya had told him earlier, or what she was doing.

Dizzily, he stood up. His throat hurt, and when he tried to speak, the resulting noise sounded like a dying Enderman.

Carefully walking to a mirror, he gingerly pulled down his mask, revealing his full face and throat. He tried his best to avoid looking at his mouth, instead focusing on his throat. He could see bruises that had formed in the shape of fingerprints.

So it hadn't been a dream.

Quickly putting his mask back on, Rythian returned to his bed, scared that Ridge would suddenly appear out of nowhere and finish what he had started.

Rythian sighed. He would just have to trust that the nuke and the knife did their jobs, and that Lalna was dead.

Still, he couldn't help but feel scared of Ridge.

And it didn't help that his instincts told him to run as far as possible.

**XXX**

As soon as Lalna's fever was under control, he began to quickly heal, much faster than most. Lomadia assumed it was because of the various bits of prosthetic cybernetics that he apparently had scattered throughout his body.

Ridge knew the truth though.

He knew that the Ender part of him was what was causing his rapid healing. He still hadn't told anybody what he had seen Lalna do, but it always lingered in the back of his mind.

Most of the time when Ridge visited, he was invisible. He would visit a few times every day just to see how things were going.

He never stayed long though. He would hang around just long enough to see that Lomadia was okay and Lalna was recovering. At least, that's what he told himself. He would always find himself lingering longer than he intended.

This was solely because of Lalna.

The day after Lomadia had gotten him the medicine, Ridge had stopped by and caught Lalna on his feet, attempting to quietly and painfully limp across the room to get something from a table or chest.

Ridge watched him closely, worried that he would collapse and reopen his wounds. He was pale, and breathing seemed painful for him. He wasn't putting any pressure on his left leg, his arm was wrapped around his chest, and his other hand was holding onto the wall to keep him steady.

Ridge pitied him, so much so that he was tempted to reveal that he was there and help him, even though he knew the scientist despised feeling helpless and would reject any assistance.

Lalna finally reached the table and chests, and he gathered a large handful of metal bits and pieces of scrap. Ridge saw no use for the scrap, but apparently Lalna did.

As Lalna made his way back to the bed, he stumbled, nearly falling over. However, he managed to catch himself, and he leaned against the wall, gasping for breath as the sudden movement stressed his wounds.

Ridge instinctively held out a hand, but Lalna shook his head.

“No...” he gasped out. “I'm fine...”

Ridge nodded and stepped back as Lalna continued to struggle back towards the bed. It took him a minute to realize that he was still invisible, yet Lalna had seen him.

That was when he noticed Lalna's eyes glowing purple. Not only was he using his Ender magic to heal himself, he was also subconsciously using it to see Ridge, even when he was completely invisible.

That freaked him out enough to make him leave.

Over the next few days when Ridge visited, Lalna would be building something. At first, he couldn't tell what it was, but it did eventually form itself into a makeshift power glove.

He couldn't help but be impressed.

Lomadia didn't exactly feel impressed, though. Over those four days, Lalna became such a pain in the ass that she seriously considered tying him down so that he would stop trying to get out of bed.

Because she didn't know about his Ender magic, she had no idea that he was constantly healing himself, even though she saw the signs.

Only two days after he got the medicine, his fever broke. The next day, his lung had mostly repaired itself, and his wounds were healing quickly. By the fourth day, they were nearly gone, except for the ones on his back and side. The rest of the wounds had left scars, though; the most noticeable being the one that stretched across his left eye, which he had gotten when his goggles shattered.

The only wound that hadn't healed by the fourth day was his broken rib, and the rest of his lung. But other than that and the remaining wounds – which were raw and bandaged – he was nearly completely healed.

It was strange to think that only a week ago he had been living peacefully in his castle.

But now the time had come. The time for vengeance.

Lalna didn't only spend the week recovering and making a new power glove. He spent it plotting.

And he had come up with a plan.

This plan involved saving his friends from the growing threat.

And this plan wouldn't end with Rythian surviving.


	5. The Plan

“No,” said Lomadia, shaking her head. “Absolutely not.”

“Lomadia, he tried to kill me,” said Lalna calmly. “You saw what he did! I mean... he's _threatened_ to kill me before, but he's never gone this far. There's something wrong with him.”

“He's right,” said Ridge, who was casually floating off to the side.

“This doesn't involve you,” snapped Lomadia, swinging her glare around towards him.

“Lomadia, please just listen,” said Lalna carefully. “We need your help. We have to stop him before anybody else gets hurt! I mean, first he tried to kill me, but what happens the next time he gets paranoid? He might go after Xephos and Honeydew, or any of the others.”

Lomadia bit her lip. Her glare had softened, and she thought about it for a minute. Finally, she nodded.

Lalna smiled. “Great!” he exclaimed, standing up. “Then in that case, it's time to go.”

“And where are we going, exactly?” asked Ridge.

Lalna picked up his glove and attached it to his right arm, where it seemed to fuse with his skin.

“We're going back to my castle.”

**XXX**

The voices had been screaming at him for four days straight. Ever since Ridge had threatened him.

The voices screamed for him to eliminate the threat. To do everything to keep her safe.

They howled at him in his dreams. The only good thing was that the voices finally accepted that Lalna was dead. However, another part of him deep down still felt so incredibly guilty for killing someone who had once been his friend.

But the voices silenced that part.

They told him to attack Ridge, but that was nearly impossible. He was too powerful to be attacked, and too clever to let himself get into a dangerous situation.

_Maybe if another accident happened to the spaceman and the dwarf. That would get his attention. Distract him._

_We could leave a trap. Use a sacrifice or two as bait._

_Find him and kill him! He's a threat! He has to be eliminated!_

The voices were louder than ever now. He heard them in his every waking hour.

He tried to stay away from Zoeya. He had to keep these demons to himself.

She was growing distant again...

He had to eliminate the threat.

He started planning how to get more nukes.

**XXX**

Lalna, Lomadia, and Ridge all teleported in, landing on the edge of the clearing.

Lalna looked a bit disoriented after being incapacitated for so long. At the moment, he was wearing nothing more than a thin white shirt, pants, his boots, which had somehow survived the explosion unlike the rest of his clothes, and he had the goggles on his forehead.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw his castle.

Lomadia and Ridge both looked at him, and for just a split second, it looked like he was going to cry or collapse from the sight of the destruction. However, he quickly hid it.

“Well...” he said, his voice cracking a bit as he repressed his emotions, “that's too bad...” Then he quickly walked ahead to avoid looking at Lomadia or Ridge.

The funny thing was, while he had been stuck in bed, he had been exploring more and more Ender spells. He had actually come across somewhat of a resurrection spell that would restore anything to its former glory, but it was incredibly challenging and would require three masters of magic to correctly preform.

With a sigh, he led the way up to his castle entrance.

“This is where the door was,” he muttered, looking at the floor and some of the pieces of rubble. “So once we go in, stay close to me. I'm not sure if my traps still work.”

“What traps?” asked Lomadia cautiously as they carefully clambered over the blackened rubble.

“Nothing much on the ground floor,” said Lalna. “Just a Tesla coil, but I doubt it will have enough power to kill us.”

“Have you ever gotten electrocuted by your own Tesla coils before?” asked Ridge, somewhat sarcastically.

Lalna nodded. “I've been electrocuted so many times that my heart doesn't beat right anymore. That's why I need this,” he said, tapping on his chest, right in the center. It resulted in a hard metallic noise, which actually startled Lomadia, since she hadn't expected him to be serious about that. Also, how had she not noticed it when she gave him CPR?

“Here we go,” said Lalna, climbing up on what used to be a fountain. “There's the wall and the entrance to the main tower,” he said. “It looks like the first floor didn't get completely destroyed, so the Tesla coil is probably still there and probably still live. We'll have to avoid that.”

“So then where do we go?” asked Ridge.

“There,” said Lalna, pointing to the right of the far tower entrance at a large pile of rubble. He jumped down and went over to the pile. “Ridge, help me out here.”

With Ridge's help, they moved several large pieces of stone, revealing what looked like a cellar door.

“Here we go,” said Lalna, pulling the doors open to reveal a set of stairs that led down into a dark and musty room. “The shockwave must have knocked out all the lights.”

They made their way down, and Lalna scattered some torches around the room to light the place up before quickly searching through one of the chests along the wall. It took Lomadia and Ridge a minute to realize that they were in a distillery.

“Well this explains a lot,” said Lomadia, looking at all the barrels of alcohol. However, when she turned around, she saw that both Lalna and Ridge were happily drinking from mugs.

“Boys!”

“Oh give me a break!” exclaimed Lalna, slamming the half empty mug down on a table. “I've had a rough week, I deserve something.”

Ridge happily finished his drink, ignoring the death glare he was getting from Lomadia.

“Okay,” said Lalna, walking up to one of the walls. “It should be here somewhere...” He carefully put his ear to the wall and carefully tapped it, listening. After a minute, he smiled. “There it is...”

Backing up to the far wall, Lalna held up his gloved right hand. He activated the plasma cannon on it, and aimed it at the wall.

Nothing happened.

“Shit,” muttered Lalna adjusting something inside the glove and noticing that the blue light on the back of his wrist was dark.

“What's wrong?” asked Ridge.

“I may have overlooked the fact that I actually need power for my power glove...” he mumbled. “Shit, I guess I'll have to do this the hard way...”

He looked up at Lomadia, his eyes wide. “Lom, please just promise me that you won't freak out, okay?”

Lomadia nodded. “What do you mean?”

Lalna didn't answer. Instead, he let the spell hiding the amulet slip away again, and it became visible.

The purple crystal in the amulet started to glow, and what looked like purple particles began to float out of the crystal and into the glove.

However, the more power that left the amulet, the more Lalna changed.

Because his eyes were closed, the first thing Lomadia noticed was his hair quickly getting darker and darker until it was black. His skin became slightly gray in color, and when he opened his eyes to see if it had worked, she saw that his eyes were glowing bright purple.

After a moment, the flow between the crystal and glove stopped, and Lalna collapsed back against the wall, breathing heavily. His appearance quickly went back to normal, and his nose started bleeding. However, the light on the glove began glowing, showing that it was powered.

“What the fuck was that?!” exclaimed Lomadia.

“Power transfer. Long story,” said Lalna, standing upright and wiping the blood off his face. “I'll tell you later.”

Then he aimed the plasma gun at the wall and blasted a hole in it.

Beyond the hole in the wall was a large and brightly lit room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my lab,” said Lalna, walking up to the hole and gesturing to the room beyond.

The brightly lit room contained a ton of scientific equipment, along with some less scientific stuff, like brewing stands.

Lalna jumped down into the room, landing lightly on his feet. He went straight for several chests on the other side of the room.

“Watch your step,” he called over his shoulder, gesturing to a small hole in the floor, which Lomadia nearly fell down. Ridge pulled her back from it before getting down on his hands and knees and looking down the hole.

“Lalna, is this a Wither skeleton farm?!” he exclaimed, seeing what was down the hole. It offended him because he was quite fond of the peculiar skeletons, and because his species were distantly related to the beasts. Seeing them plummet to the ground to be finished off by an armed golem was a bit unnerving, especially because of how well it worked.

“Maybe,” said Lalna, who was looking at a light gray short sleeve lab coat he had found in one of the chests. He put it on, smiling at the familiar texture of the fabric.

Ridge still looked pissed about the Wither skeletons. “You and I are going to have a chat about this.”

“Good, I'll invite you over for tea sometime,” said Lalna, focusing all of his attention on rummaging through the chests.

Lomadia went over to him as he continued looking for supplies.

“Lalna, what was it that just happened back there?” she asked quietly.

Lalna stopped shuffling around in the chest, and his eyes lost focus.

“Like I said, it's a long story...”

“Then make it short.”

Lalna sighed and went back to looking through the chests.

“Do you remember a few years ago when Xephos, Honeydew, Sips, Sjin, and I went missing?”

Lomadia nodded. “You guys were gone for months.”

Lalna nodded, finding his old emerald sword in the chest. “Well, nobody could find us because we got kinda... kidnapped... and taken into this really glitchy world. The first night we were there, we got attacked by a fucking army of mobs. There was a giant mutant Enderman there too, and it mauled me.”

As he said this, his hand drifted to his right side. Lomadia had noticed when she was bandaging him that he had three long jagged scars running from his right hip all the way across his ribs, but she hadn't thought much of it, seeing as he was covered in scars from various accidents.

“As it turns out, that Enderman was poisonous. I started becoming nocturnal, the light hurt my eyes, I couldn't eat anything except pork, I teleported across the room every time I sneezed, and I vomited up blood when I tried to drink water. You don't even want to _know_ what happened when I fell in the lake.

“Then on the next full moon... well, Ender Lalna made an appearance. I wasn't aware of it the first time, because I was alone, but the next full moon, I was with the others, and I transformed right in front of them. I probably would have killed them too, but one of them threw a bucket of water at me.”

He stopped, deep in thought. He pulled something that looked like the skeletal frame of metal boots from the chest and started fiddling with them.

“The funny thing is,” he continued, “it was Rythian who saved my life. We found a way to contact him, and he warned me that my third full moon with the poison would kill me. He also told us what could cure me.”

At this point, his hand drifted up towards the amulet, which was still visible.

“On the full moon, the mutant Enderman came back, and I fought it. I managed to kill it, but just before it died, it grabbed me and teleported me to the End. The others had to come get me out, and we managed to escape before the world crashed.”

“So what was the cure?” asked Lomadia.

“It's this,” said Lalna, holding up the amulet. “This is an Ender crystal, like the ones the Ender Dragon uses to heal itself. It completely stops the Enderman part of me, so I can keep going on with my life without having to worry about accidentally killing any of my friends. It's also a good source of power and magic to recharge batteries and let me heal myself.”

Lomadia raised an eyebrow. “So... it's a full moon tonight. Does that mean you're going to go crazy and try and kill everyone?”

Lalna laughed dryly and shook his head. “No, not as long as I have this,” he said, holding up the amulet again. “But the full moon does make it more powerful, so I'll be stronger and faster, and the amulet will heal me faster if I get hurt.”

At that point, he pulled out a small ring with a blue crystal on it. Smiling, he handed it to Lomadia.

“Where did you get one of these?” asked Lomadia excitedly, seeing the ring, which was probably the only surviving flying ring. All of the others had long since disappeared.

Lalna laughed. “There's something about my lab... Things randomly show up here, even after they vanish from existence everywhere else.”

He finally finished fiddling with the metal skeletons; he closed the chest and sat down on it, hooking the frames onto his boots.

“What are those?” asked Ridge, who had been drifting around the room, looking at the various blueprints hanging up on the wall.

“These are clip-on electric jet boots,” said Lalna, standing up. “They can be removed, they don't impair your walking, and it's a damn cool way of getting around.”

A light on top of the boots started to glow blue, and suddenly, Lalna was hovering in midair. Beneath each boot were two bolts of electricity and blue fire propelling him upwards.

He let the power fade, and he came back down to ground level.

“That should work,” he said, standing up straight. For just a split second, his appearance flickered and the black hair and purple eyes returned as the boots drained power from the crystal, but it didn't last. “Now I just need one more thing...”

He went to his desk in the center of the room. Sitting in the very center of the large table was a tiny green, blue, and purple object. It was oblong, and it had a small button in the center that looked like an Eye of Ender.

“What is that?” asked Lomadia as she and Ridge looked over Lalna's shoulder at the strange object.

“This is in case of emergencies,” said Lalna. “This can open up a temporary portal between this world and the End. I made it so that I'd never get trapped in the End again. Thank you for that, by the way,” he added, shooting a glare at Ridge, who shrugged and looked away guiltily.

Lomadia raised an eyebrow. She had heard all about what happened during the Voltz program, but Ridge trapping Lalna in the End had never come up. Probably because Lalna had been traumatized by the experience, or because being in the End had activated his inner Enderman. She didn't know for sure.

“Okay,” said Lalna, slipping the portal device into his lab coat pocket, “let's get moving.”

He walked back to the hole in the wall and used his jet boots to get up. Lomadia flew up using her ring, and Ridge followed using his magic. They all left back through the brewery, returning to the carnage above ground.

“Okay, this way,” said Lalna, hovering over the debris and directing them towards what looked like a small house in the distance.

They landed in front of the house, but instead of going inside, Lalna led them around back.

“This was the first lab I built after the accident in the Old World,” he said. “It's empty now, because I've moved everything up to the castle... or... I did move everything up there...”

Lalna quickly took them around to a small shed a few hundred feet away from the house. He opened the door, and Lomadia and Ridge saw nothing but computers and wires inside.

“Just a minute,” said Lalna, quickly typing. A moment later, he stood back and closed the door before gesturing to a large flat area of grass.

Then the ground there started moving. It separated and slowly slid back, revealing a massive hidden bunker.

Lalna grinned, looking a bit insane. He held up a remote that he must have gotten from his lab, and he pressed the button.

The sounds of whirring and metallic humming filled the air, and something started to rise from the bunker. It was a large object with four identical sides; it was covered in bright green lights, and it had four enormous lasers on the bottom.

“And I present to you... my spaceship!” exclaimed Lalna, gesturing happily as the ship stopped rising and slowly flew down to meet them.

“As impressive as this is,” said Ridge as he admired the ship, “we do we need it when we can fly on our own?”

“Well, I can't fly very long with only my crystal as power,” said Lalna with a shrug. “Also, Lomadia doesn't have that much fuel for her ring. And these lasers can cause some major destruction much easier than I could.”

“That's debatable,” muttered Ridge.

They boarded the ship through a broken window, Lalna making a comment about how he really should have added a door.

The inside of the ship was strange; it was both high-tech and simple, using advanced computers and wiring along with basic frames and motors. The inside wall hummed with machinery.

Lalna led them past an area filled with strange crystals and totems, and his own crystal started to glow brighter.

“Here we go,” said Lalna as they entered a room with more computers. He quickly typed something in, and the ship shuddered and took to the sky.

The flight was quiet and tense. Lomadia was standing behind Lalna, so she couldn't see his face, but she could tell he was nervous about what they were about to do. After all, it had been only a week since Rythian tried to kill him.

As they drew close to the desert, Lalna typed in another command and the ship stopped.

“Lomadia, Ridge,” said Lalna, trying to avoid letting the apprehension creep into his voice, “fly ahead and evacuate everybody. There's no need for any more lives to be lost...”

Ridge nodded, but Lomadia didn't look quite so certain.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” she asked.

Lalna sighed. “Lomadia, we have to do this before he tries to kill anyone else...”

At this point, Ridge quietly stepped through another broken window and drifted about twenty meters away from the ship, just to give the two some privacy.

“I know he's dangerous,” said Lomadia. “That's why I'm so nervous. Why does it have to be you? Why can't you let Ridge stop him? You're not even fully healed yet! And... and he almost killed you once, what's gonna stop him from nearly killing you again?!”

Before Lomadia could continue, Lalna stepped forward and hugged her. She was shocked for a second, but then she quickly returned the hug. Lalna actually winced as the tight embrace stressed his broken rib.

“Sorry,” said Lomadia, stepping back.

Lalna smiled sadly. “Don't worry,” he said, doing his best to appear calm. “I actually do have a plan.”

Lomadia looked like she was blinking back tears as she nodded. “Just... just be careful.” Then she quickly turned and stepped out the window, joining Ridge. They both flew in the direction of Rythian's home.

Lalna waited a few minutes before starting up the ship again and propelling it forward. He flicked the switch that would prep the lasers.

It was time to make a dramatic entrance and cause some mayhem.


	6. Vengeance

Ridge and Lomadia had a plan. Ridge would distract Rythian while Lomadia would clear everyone out.

It was strange, though. When Zoeya opened the door, she looked a bit surprised to see them, but when Rythian came up behind her and saw who had knocked on the door, his eyes went wide and his face went pale as if he had just seen death itself.

“Hey Zoeya,” said Lomadia casually. “Can we talk?”

“Uh, sure,” said Zoeya, glancing nervously at Ridge.

“Oh don't worry,” said Ridge. “I'm just here to make sure there's no... funny business.” He looked right at Rythian as he said this, and Rythian quickly looked down to avoid eye contact.

Zoeya picked up on the action, which sparked her suspicious nature.

“Okay, let's talk,” she said to Lomadia, who nodded and gestured for her to follow.

“Should I come too?” asked Rythian hurriedly.

“No, we'll be fine,” said Zoeya. “Why don't you stay here and catch up with Ridge.”

Rythian's eye twitched.

Lomadia led Zoeya away from the house, and as they walked, Teep came out of nowhere and followed them.

“Do you think it's gonna rain?” asked Lomadia casually as she looked up at the dark storm clouds gathering in the sky.

“Probably not,” said Zoeya. “It doesn't rain much in the desert. That's why Rythian likes it here. Less water to worry about.”

Lomadia nodded, but before she could continue the casual bullshit, Zoeya stopped walking and turned to face her.

“Okay, what's really going on?” she asked, since they were far enough away from the house.

Lomadia briefly thought about lying to her, but she figured it was better she knew.

“It was Rythian who tried to kill Lalna,” she said bluntly. “He launched a nuke at Lalna's castle and tried to make it look like his reactor melted down.”

Zoeya's eyes widened, but before she could say anything, a deafening roar filled the air, accompanied by the wind, which suddenly started to howl. A dark shape appeared inside the clouds.

Suddenly, Ridge teleported in next to the three.

“And that's our cue,” he said. “Run.”

Without hesitation, they all turned and sprinted as far away as possible from the village and house as the spaceship descended from the clouds.

Rythian, who was still shocked at how quickly Ridge had disappeared, ran outside of the house and looked up at the skies, his eyes wide. The voices were screaming again, chiding him for not killing Ridge when he had the chance, demanding to know what the giant thing in the sky was, and most importantly, screaming for him to find Zoeya and make sure she was safe.

Suddenly, the speakers on the massive object blared to life, and Rythian's blood ran cold as he heard the voice of the man he had killed.

“Did you miss me?!”

And then the lasers fired up.

Rythian just barely had time to dive into a ditch before the lasers hit his house and triggered an enormous explosion that destroyed the entire house and the surrounding landscape.

For just a moment, Rythian couldn't hear or see anything. Then the effects of the explosion were replaced with rage.

Jumping to his feet, Rythian shot a blast of magic at the ship.

Lalna, who was shocked at how quickly he had managed to get up after that, just barely had time to move the ship to the left to avoid getting hit. However, Rythian shot another, and Lalna couldn't move the ship in time.

The blast of magic slammed right into the underside of the ship, right in the center. There was a loud crashing noise as the core began to collapse, and the ship started to fall out of the air.

“Shit shit shit,” muttered Lalna, dropping the attempt to regain control. The ship was going down.

Thinking quickly, he ran back to the area with the crystals and obsidian totems that radiated magic. Standing inside the area surrounded by the totems, he activated his crystal, which fed off of the magical energy. Using it, he encased the small area inside of a bubble of magic. Not a second later, the ship smashed into the ground, sliding a bit before exploding in a massive fireball.

Rythian just managed to avoid being roasted by hiding behind the wall of one of the still standing buildings. His sharp ears picked up screaming coming from a few hundred meters away – it was probably Lomadia.

Emerging from behind the corner, Rythian saw the smoldering remains of the ship.

Then he saw something moving in the remains.

Suddenly, something shot upwards out of the wreckage, flying with what looked like jet boots, hovering over the flames and avoiding the smoke.

It was Lalna, and he wasn't even singed.

He smiled when he saw Rythian. “It's not so easy to kill me, is it?”

Rythian snarled and summoned a sphere of magic above each hand. “Don't worry,” he growled, his voice carrying the undertone of an Enderman and his eyes glowing purple, “I'll be sure to kill you thoroughly this time.”

Lalna, who was still hovering in midair, drew his emerald sword and charged his power glove with a plasma ball.

Lightning flashed in the skies above them.

Rythian launched one of the spheres of purple magic at Lalna, where it formed into the shape of a spear. Lalna swerved to his left to avoid it, and in response, he shot a plasma ball at Rythian.

The Mage teleported a few feet away, avoiding the projectile. He fired another blast of magic, which Lalna deflected with his sword and sent flying into a building, where it exploded and destroyed half of the wall.

Suddenly, Rythian teleported, and Lalna didn't see where he went.

He heard him though.

Lalna whipped around in time to take a blast of magic to the chest. The impact sent him flying through the air, and he landed hard, skidding against the sandstone before slamming into a wall.

Rythian landed on his feet in front of him.

“How did that not kill you?” he muttered, watching with what seemed like curiosity as Lalna struggled to catch his breath, which was incredibly difficult due to his injured rib and lung.

“Y-you didn't k-know...?” Lalna gasped out, spitting out blood. “Two Endermen can't kill each other with Ender magic.”

Rythian was confused, but he could barely think over the voices screaming in his head.

He drew his dagger.

Without hesitation, he brought the knife down on Lalna's chest.

Then Lalna teleported, and the knife passed through the air where his torso had been half a second before.

As soon as Lalna landed the teleport, his nose started bleeding. He quickly held his sleeve to his nose to stop the bleeding as he pressed his back against the wall he had teleported behind. Of course he was used to teleporting with normal magic or science, but the teleport he had just preformed was an Ender teleport, similar to what would have happened if he had thrown an Ender pearl. It had been such a long time since he last teleported with it.

Meanwhile, Rythian stood shocked. He stared at the spot where Lalna had vanished for a moment, realizing that the teleport hadn't left a jump scar, so he couldn't follow it.

He thought about what Lalna had said about the Endermen.

Then he noticed an almost invisible trail of purple particles, leading away from the spot and towards the far wall of one of the buildings.

“So that's where you are...” Rythian whispered to himself, smiling and moving towards the wall.

Meanwhile, Lalna had no idea that Rythian knew his location.

Slowly, he stood up with his back pressed against the wall. He couldn't hear Rythian; he couldn't sense him either.

Just when Lalna got the courage to activate his jet boots and fly up, something stopped him. He was suddenly pulled back against the wall; his power glove, his boots, his sword, his arm... everything with metal in it suddenly stuck to the wall.

Rythian had used magic to magnetize the wall.

Lalna gasped for breath as the strong magnet started to pull at his pacemaker, making it short circuit, resulting in his heartbeat increasing and fluttering dangerously. He couldn't do anything about it though, because both hands were still stuck to the wall.

He was so focused on struggling to pull himself away, he didn't see Rythian coming around the corner until he was already in front of him.

“Magnets are great, aren't they?” said Rythian tauntingly. “The perfect mixture of magic and science... Speaking of which, it looks like you're using both.”

As he said this, he came closer to the amulet, which was still visible and glowing bright purple.

“Where did you get this?” asked Rythian, reaching for the amulet.

Lalna quickly activated the spell that protected it, and Rythian flinched away as the protection spell sent a jolt of electricity up his arm.

“You should know,” said Lalna, spitting blood out of his mouth. “You were the one that told me how to get it.”

For just a split second, something changed in Rythian's eyes, and Lalna could have sworn he saw the old Rythian, the one who he had actually been friends with. The one who hadn't been driven mad with vengeance.

A second later though, that Rythian disappeared and the crazed, evil one returned, looking angrier than ever.

He glared at Lalna's left arm, which was stuck to the wall by itself.

“Why is your hand stuck to the wall? Last time I checked, magnets only work on metal.”

Lalna grimaced, but he figured getting Rythian to remember what had happened in the past would possibly snap him out of whatever was going on with him. Also, he knew he had to keep him talking while he tried to deactivate the magnet spell.

“I'm sure you remember what happened in the Old World, right?” asked Lalna. “Sjin made my reactor melt down, and even though I knew it was gonna blow, I went down there to try and stop it. It exploded right in my face and I lost my arm. So I built myself a new one. Pretty convincing, huh? I made myself a new limb. It has blood and nerves, I can feel pain... the only difference is it has a metal skeleton.”

As he spoke, he had no idea that Zoeya, Lomadia, and Ridge were hiding nearby in one of the buildings. All three of them were wide-eyed at Lalna's story, especially Zoeya.

They wanted to help Lalna, but Rythian would simply kill him if he saw them coming.

And besides, it truly was Lalna's fight.

While Lalna had been speaking, he had nearly worked completely through the spell. He also noticed that the old Rythian kept appearing more and more as he mentioned how he had lost his arm in the explosion and how similar his experience was to Zoeya's.

Suddenly, evil Rythian returned with a vengeance. The two Rythians seemed to fight for a second before the evil one dominated and took over. He pulled out his dagger and lunged at Lalna again.

At the last second, Lalna broke the spell and teleported right behind Rythian. He gave him a good kick in the rear end before activating his jet boots and shooting up into the air.

Rythian stumbled, but he instantly turned and shot up after Lalna.

Lalna just barely had time to mutter the word “shit” before Rythian slammed into him and they both went flying, throwing punches at each other and teleporting all over the place as the flying turned into a fall.

They crashed into the ground and separated. Lalna quickly glanced around and saw that they had landed at the Blackrock crater.

Lalna quickly jumped to his feet, only at that moment realizing that his leg was broken. He collapsed back to his knees, but a few seconds later, his crystal – and his eyes – started to glow bright purple, there was a searing pain in his leg, and then the pain was gone and he was healed.

“Why can't you do that for all my bones?” muttered Lalna, looking down at the crystal, which wasn't glowing nearly as bright as before.

Suddenly, he sensed danger. He quickly flew up into the air just as Rythian smashed a rock down where his head had just been.

Rythian shot up at him, and Lalna quickly shot a few plasma balls at him. They weren't enough to hurt him, but they would distract him. One of them actually hit him, and he fell out of the air, landing hard and tumbling down to the bottom of the crater.

As quick as he could, Lalna sent another wave of power to his boots, and he went flying away from the crater.

After a minute, though, the crystal started running low on energy. Before Lalna could stop it, it tapped into his own source of life energy.

Almost instantly, Lalna's vision went black and he fell, slamming into the soft slightly wet ground.

For a minute, he was unconscious. Then he started to hear echoey voices coming closer to him.

Forcing his eyes open, he looked around and realized that he had landed right outside of the Jaffa Factory. The impact had created a small crater.

Then he recognized the voices.

They couldn't see him because of the crater. They had no idea...

Painfully, Lalna reached up and took hold of the edge of the crater. Then he pulled himself into an upright position.

“Hi guys,” he said, looking over at Xephos and Honeydew and casually waving as if he came back from the dead every day.

“Lalna?!” exclaimed Honeydew, his voice cracking.

Xephos looked too shocked to say anything.

“You guys look surprised,” said Lalna as Xephos and Honeydew rushed forward and helped him to his feet. “It takes more than a little explosion to get rid of me...”

Suddenly, he found himself in the middle of a tight hug from both Xephos and Honeydew. It was painful because he was cut and bruised from his crash landing, but he had missed his friends so much that he didn't care about the pain.

Lalna smiled, but then his inner Enderman told him Rythian was coming in fast.

“Guys,” he said, “you might wanna go find cover.”

“Why?” asked Xephos as he and Honeydew stepped back. “What's going on?”

“I'll explain later,” he said quickly. “Now go!”

“If you die again I'll kill you,” warned Honeydew before he and Xephos took off for their dorm.

Lalna stepped out of the crater and looked at the sky, his sword and glove at the ready.

The gray clouds were darker now, and thunder rumbled every few seconds. But he had no idea where Rythian was.

The brief moment of rest he had had allowed his crystal to recharge enough so that it would stop stealing his energy. But, even using his magic, he couldn't see where Rythian was.

The wind was blowing stronger and the storm was intensifying. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky and a silhouette appeared in the clouds.

Lalna's eyes widened as the silhouette manifested itself into Rythian.

Faster than an arrow, Rythian shot down towards Lalna. Knowing he didn't have time to move, Lalna quickly made a shield of pure Ender magic and put it between himself and Rythian.

Rythian slammed into the shield so hard that it shattered, and he slammed right into Lalna, somehow turning so that his foot was on Lalna's chest. A split second later, Lalna was pinned to the ground with the wind knocked out of him and possibly another broken rib.

Rythian stood above him, silhouetted by the flashing lightning. His knife was raised, and it was surrounded by glowing purple magic. For just a split second, his eyes glowed red instead of purple. Lalna also noticed that his left shoulder was dislocated after impacting the shield. There was a large cut on it, and for a second, black wispy smoke poured out of the wound.

Rythian moved too fast for Lalna to comprehend. He raised the dagger and started to bring it down.

Then he got hit in the head with a Jaffa cake.

Slowly turning, both Rythian and Lalna looked over and saw Xephos and Honeydew standing a while away. Honeydew had an armful of Jaffas ready to throw, and Xephos had his bow drawn and aimed at Rythian.

Without a word, Xephos let the arrow fly.

In that split second, all of Rythian's focus was on getting out of the way of the arrow. That was when Lalna activated his jet boots and shot himself backwards, which sent Rythian sprawling.

Cutting off power to the jet boots, Lalna backflipped in midair and landed on his feet.

Snarling, Rythian jumped to his feet. His hands were glowing with purple magic, and a moment later, he formed the spheres of magic into spears. These looked different though, like they were actually solid.

Lalna wasn't prepared when he turned and hurled the spears at Xephos and Honeydew.

He didn't have time to think.

He teleported himself right in front of his friends.

A split second later, the spears hit him, one on his right shoulder and the other in his stomach.

He dropped to the ground, and the spears vanished, but the wounds remained.

Xephos and Honeydew were shocked at how quickly it happened, but they quickly tried to run forwards and help Lalna. However, Rythian lunged forward and encased himself and Lalna in a bubble of magic, sealing Xephos and Honeydew outside.

“I had a feeling you'd do that,” he said as he stood over the scientist.

Lalna ignored him, too focused on trying to heal himself. However, it didn't seem to be working. The pain in both of the wounds was nearly unbearable as the magic burned through him, triggering small convulsions. His pacemaker could barely keep up with his racing heart. He started to cough up blood again, and his nose was bleeding heavily.

He had to get out of there.

Glancing up and seeing that Rythian had started to monologue, he tried to teleport, but something stopped him and sent shards of pain through the wounds at the same time. It was so painful that he actually curled around the wound on his stomach and screamed. His eyes flashed purple for a moment, but Rythian didn't seem to notice.

“Nice touch, huh?” Rythian asked, smiling evilly behind his mask. “I laced those spears with Enderbane.”

Lalna didn't like the sound of that.

Rythian's smile widened when he saw Lalna's fear and confusion.

“In case you didn't know,” he said mockingly, “Enderbane can cut off an Enderman from the End, taking away its ability to teleport and eventually killing it.”

For just a split second, Lalna's mind went blank. He still wasn't sure _exactly_ what Rythian had poisoned him with, or if he understood fully what it did for that matter, but he did know it was killing him.

“Don't worry,” said Rythian. “I'll kill you long before the Enderbane has a chance.”

“Then in that case,” muttered Lalna, “you wouldn't mind telling me what the cure is?”

Rythian laughed humorlessly. “Nice try,” he said. “Now... where were we?”

He raised his dagger again.

Lalna looked around quickly before looking up and seeing something that could help him.

He used a bit of magic and triggered the clouds to release their rain.

The rain instantly started to burn holes in the bubble. When the water hit Rythian, he panicked a bit and the shield completely dissolved, allowing Xephos and Honeydew to rush forward and pull Lalna to his feet.

Because Lalna had his crystal, the water didn't affect him. Rythian, however, was immediately singed and bleeding from the rain. He quickly hid under a nearby tree and began to use magic to make the rain stop.

Lalna saw what he was doing.

“Guys,” he said, “I _really_ think you should go inside now...”

This time, Xephos and Honeydew didn't argue. They helped Lalna regain his footing before turning and running inside, peeking through the window.

By that time, Rythian had stopped the rain. The blood oozing out of the wounds on Lalna's shoulder and stomach had turned black, along with the blood he was coughing up.

“You should really learn to pick your fights more carefully,” said Rythian, looking slightly deranged. “Especially when you don't have your beloved _science_ to back you up.”

As much as Lalna didn't want to admit it, he was right. The pain in his shoulder and stomach was making him see spots, and none of his science could get rid of the poison.

And Rythian was going to kill him.

Grimacing, he activated his jet boots just as Rythian lunged at him. Turning, he fired a plasma ball at him. Rythian quickly put up a small shield to protect himself. Then he flew up at Lalna.

A split second before Rythian got to him, Lalna cut the power to his boots and started to fall. As soon as Rythian was over him though, he reactivated power and shot up at him, swinging his sword. Rythian just barely managed to avoid getting run through. However, Lalna's sword cut deep into his left side, right in the same area where Lalna had been heavily wounded from the explosion.

Rythian backed off to heal, and that gave Lalna a chance to escape. He quickly flew off, trying to lead Rythian away from the factory. However, as he flew, he found himself coming closer and closer to Sipsco.

The last thing he wanted was more collateral damage, so he twisted – very painfully – in midair and shot upwards into the clouds with Rythian hot on his tail.

As soon as he made it into the clouds, he was safe. Rythian was hovering just below the cloud cover, unable to fly through them because of the water. He quickly started to surround himself in a magic bubble, but it gave Lalna time to think. 

All around him, electricity crackled through the air, and the winds battered him from side to side. His wounds were burning and bleeding, and it was getting harder for him to focus.

Suddenly, he got an idea.

He had always used his ring before, but this time he didn't have it. He would have to rely on his magic and the memory of the spell.

Taking a deep breath and using all of his willpower to concentrate, he summoned a bolt of lightning just as Rythian finished his bubble. The lightning shattered the magic and knocked Rythian out of the air.

Because of the updrafts and thermal winds, they were now directly over top of the Sipsco compound. Lalna watched Rythian fall, and he landed only a few feet away from the pool.

“So close...” muttered Lalna. Then he quickly flew down and pinned Rythian to the ground with his foot. He also glanced at the window and saw Sips and Sjin staring wide-eyed at them from inside. Lalna could only imagine what they had thought when they saw him.

Lalna glared back down at Rythian, but he was startled to see more of the black smoke oozing from his wounds. The Mage was only half conscious, but his eyes were open. And they were glowing bright red.

Suddenly, Rythian snapped back into consciousness, and he tried to lunge at Lalna. However, the tip of Lalna's sword pressed into his throat stopped him cold.

“Rythian,” said Lalna, doing his best to keep his voice from quivering from the pain, “what happened to you? Did you finally lose your grip on sanity? Is that why you tried to kill me?”

Rythian snarled. “They told me to kill you!” he shouted, spitting blood out of his mouth. “They said you were going to try and attack us! I had to protect her!”

Lalna wasn't expecting this answer. “What do you mean _they_...?”

Rythian only glared, his eyes flickering red for just a second.

Lalna narrowed his eyes. “Who's been talking to you...?”

Suddenly, Rythian flung himself to the side, causing Lalna to lose his balance and take his foot off of his chest.

Lalna fell, and Rythian sprung to his feet. He lunged at him with his dagger, but Lalna jumped out of the way and slashed at Rythian with his sword, slicing his arm open.

Using Rythian's distraction to his advantage, he quickly scrambled away and took to the air again, flying back up into the clouds. He couldn't tell exactly where he was heading though.

As he flew, the pain from his wounds got worse and worse as the poison started to become more potent. He was incredibly lightheaded, and at one point he lost consciousness and fell for a hundred feet before snapping awake and continuing flying.

He flew over top of the crater where his castle used to be, but he kept going.

His energy and pain tolerance were draining, and he began to fly slower and lower until he was far below the clouds. He didn't notice the landscape below him change into a desert.

It was only when he saw the buildings and the fire and the craters from the explosions that he realized he was heading straight back towards Rythian's desert home, where the battle had started. He could already see a bunch of figures running around and congregating near the center of the village.

Just as he made the decision to land, he was roughly tackled from behind.

The impact sent them both sprawling through the air, and they landed hard about a hundred meters outside of the village.

Lalna tried to stand upright, but the pain from his various wounds was too great, and he collapsed back on his knees.

Rythian painfully got to his feet and kicked Lalna's sword aside. He was breathing heavily from the exertion of fighting, and probably from the pain from his own wounds.

With his gloved hand, Lalna reached up and punched Rythian in the jaw, knocking him over.

When Rythian fell, Lalna turned away and started scrambling to reach his sword.

Then he screamed when Rythian jabbed his knife into his back.

Rythian pulled out the knife and grabbed Lalna by the back of his coat, lifting him up. He then brought the knife down again, aiming for Lalna's side, just under his left arm.

However, Lalna's hand shot out and grabbed Rythian's arm. The tip of the blade just barely pierced his side before Lalna managed to yank it out of Rythian's hand. Then he turned and stabbed Rythian in the hip with his own knife.

Rythian staggered backwards, and Lalna held the dagger out, holding it up in front of him and trying to ignore the burning pain in his shoulder, stomach, and back and how lightheaded and dizzy he was from losing so much blood.

Rythian glared up at him. Suddenly, he was surrounded by a purple fog for a split second. However, the fog disappeared, and Rythian stumbled backwards, crying out in pain and clutching the knife wound.

“You really shouldn't have used Enderbane,” said Lalna, standing up and holding out the knife, which still had his and Rythian's blood on it. When he stabbed Rythian, some of the Enderbane that was lurking in his system got into Rythian through the wound, effectively poisoning him as well.

“I'd say we're on more even grounds now, wouldn't you?” said Lalna, not wanting to risk looking away from the Mage to find his sword.

Rythian shrugged. “But somehow it's still a bit unfair.”

Suddenly, he lunged forward. Lalna side-stepped him and sliced the knife across his side.

Rythian stumbled and fell, but when Lalna went up to him, he quickly turned over, having pretended to fall just to get Lalna's dropped sword.

Before Lalna could react, Rythian swung the sword at him. It impacted solidly with his left hand, cutting a deep gash in his wrist, so deep that it actually hit the metal bones.

Lalna screamed and stumbled backwards, covering the wound with his hand and forcing the crystal to heal the wound at least partially, just enough to heal the cut artery.

As his wrist was slowly healing, Rythian stood up, holding out the sword. Lalna saw him, and he slowly stood up, picking up the knife he had dropped.

Lunging forward, Rythian raised the sword above his head and swung it down. Lalna used the knife to deflect the blow, but it was difficult because he had to do it right-handed, because his left hand was still healing.

Rythian spun around and hit the knife with the sword so hard that it went flying out of Lalna's hand and landed about a hundred feet away in a sand dune.

The force of the blow knocked him around, and Lalna barely had time to get to his feet before Rythian came up behind him and put him in a chokehold. He was still holding the sword dangerously close to Lalna's throat.

“Rythian...” Lalna choked out, gasping for breath. “L-listen... There's s-something... in y-your mind... Don't... listen... to it...”

As he spoke, he clawed at Rythian's arm, trying desperately to make him loosen his grip. He was running out of air, already getting tunnel vision.

“I'm sorry Lalna,” said Rythian as he tightened his grip. “But you're too dangerous to let go.”

Lalna's vision started to go dark. Still clawing at Rythian's arm with his right hand, he let his left hand fall down by his side.

Starting to lose consciousness, he reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out the Ender portal device.

He aimed it right at the ground beneath them and pushed the button.

A thin beam of purple light shot out of the end and hit the ground. The sand beneath their feet disappeared, and they both fell through the Void, the portal snapping shut behind them.

As soon as they fell through the portal, Rythian let go of him. He felt himself falling for a moment before-

_WHAM!_

He slammed down face first on the hard Endstone. The impact knocked the wind out of him and sent waves of pain through the deep wounds on his shoulder, stomach, and back.

Groaning in pain, he pushed his upper body up and propped himself up on his elbows. About ten feet away from him, Rythian was lying on his back, looking like he was regaining consciousness. The sword was lying right between them.

That was when Lalna noticed something was off.

They had landed near the edge of the End, but still close enough to the center. However, there were no Endermen around them. Looking to his right, he saw that all of the Endermen were gathered as far away from them as possible. None of them got pissed when he looked at them.

Even the Ender Dragon was over on the far side. It wasn't even flying around. It was simply sitting on top of one of the obsidian pillars, watching them.

Everything about that was ominous.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Looking, he saw Rythian painfully climbing to his feet.

Quickly, he stood up as well, taking some punishment from the deep knife wound on his back, which was still stinging from getting sand in it.

Lalna started to say something when he was hit with unbearable pain, radiating out of the spear wounds. His throat and lungs were burning as well, and his crystal began to glow blindingly bright.

Clutching his chest, he dropped back to his knees, coughing a deep painful cough. Thick black blood started to ooze out of the spear wounds. He also started coughing up blood, both a mixture of the black blood and his normal poisoned blood.

Rythian was watching this, and he started laughing.

“Oh, it's been a while since you've been to the End, hasn't it, Lalna?” he asked menacingly. “The thing is, you're still new at being half Enderman. You're still fighting it, and in a place like this, fighting it will kill you.”

Lalna looked up at Rythian, his eyes watering. He noticed that Rythian had pulled his mask down, revealing his scarred smile and split mouth that nearly literally reached ear to ear. His skin had turned dark gray, and there was black blood oozing out of the knife wound on his hip. It was only then that Lalna realized that all of the Ender Crystals around him were trying to heal him by forcing the Enderbane out of his body.

After a moment, the Enderbane was gone, but something else was happening.

Being in the End gave his inner Enderman an overwhelming amount of power.

He started to Change.

“No,” he groaned, trying to force the Change to stop. He could feel his eyes change from their normal bright green to glowing purple. His hair was hanging in his eyes, so he saw it turn black. He looked down at his arms and hands. They changed from flesh colored to the same dark gray that Rythian's skin was at the moment. Black claws painfully replaced his fingernails.

But that wasn't the end of it like it normally was. The power of the End was awakening something inside him that had been sleeping for a very long time.

He felt his bones begin to shift. His arms and legs were getting longer, and his spine started to stretch and break and realign itself. The muscles in his shoulders, arms, and back started to tighten, which started to rip open his lab coat. There was a sharp pain in his jaw as his teeth began to sharpen.

Then, somehow, he finally forced the transformation to stop. It was only halfway through, but it stopped, and his bones began to shrink and return to their normal positions. His teeth and muscles returned to normal, but the claws stayed, along with the black hair, dark skin, and purple eyes.

He was lucky he had stopped the beast before it had fully taken control.

Rythian had watched the whole thing happen, and he was too shocked to move. He simply stood wide-eyed, holding the sword in his hand.

Slowly, Lalna stood upright and faced Rythian, breathing hard, his lab coat torn at the shoulders and covered in blood.

“What are you...?” asked Rythian quietly.

Lalna smiled menacingly. “I'm the guy you shouldn't have fucked with.”

Rythian's eye twitched, and part of him wanted to drop the sword. But the voices reminded him that Lalna was wounded and mostly weaponless.

Snarling, Rythian charged forward. He swung the sword, but Lalna teleported right behind him and whacked him in the back of the head with his power glove, which made him see stars for a moment.

Lalna quickly fired a plasma ball at Rythian, but he teleported a few feet away and avoided it before charging him again.

Using his heightened senses and increased strength and speed, Lalna ran straight at Rythian. He ducked to avoid being run through with his own sword, and he slammed straight into the Mage, plowing him over. Rythian fell and dropped the sword.

Seeing his opportunity, Lalna scrambled to his feet, but Rythian grabbed his ankle and twisted it so hard that the bone broke.

Lalna screamed and used his uninjured foot to kick Rythian in the nose, breaking it.

Rythian wasn't down long; he slowly got to his feet behind Lalna.

The scientist saw this out of the corner of his eye, and he army crawled as fast as he could towards the sword.

He grabbed it just as Rythian lunged for his throat.

Rolling over on his back, Lalna held up the sword just as Rythian got to him.

He didn't have time to stop or even teleport.

With a sickening crunch, the blade went straight through Rythian's chest, the tip coming out through his back.

For just a split second, time froze, and Lalna and Rythian were left staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then slowly, Rythian fell to the side and landed on his back right next to Lalna.

Breathing heavily, Lalna forced himself into a sitting position and carefully pulled the sword out of Rythian's chest. As he did so, he noticed the poor guy was still breathing, painfully struggling and gasping for air. Blood was pouring out of the wound and his mouth. His eyes were wide and glassy.

Suddenly, he started convulsing, thrashing around. Lalna scooted back a bit, but suddenly, an enormous amount of black smoke burst out of the wound on Rythian's chest. It all floated up and gathered in the air before floating down in the very center of the End. The dragon and the Endermen all seemed very put off by the smoke creature, and it started to become solid.

Lalna's eyes widened. He knew a demon when he saw one.

This thing had been what was possessing Rythian, and it had just abandoned him because he was dying.

That thought hit Lalna like a punch in the face.

He quickly turned back to Rythian and saw that he was still barely breathing, but there was more blood flowing from the wound.

Without another thought, Lalna lunged towards the Mage and placed both hands flat on his chest around the wound. He channeled every drop of energy he had into healing the wound, both internally and externally.

Several seconds later, the bleeding stopped, all of his internal organs damaged by the blade had healed completely, and all that was left was a long shallow flesh wound.

Immediately, Lalna dropped, gasping for breath, blood pouring out of his nose. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to use every last ounce of his energy...

That was when he remembered the demon.

He looked up at it just as it spoke, still in its gaseous form.

“I knew I should have taken you as a host,” said a hissing voice from somewhere in the smoke.

Lalna's eyes widened and his face became impossibly pale. Even Rythian, who had just regained consciousness behind him, heard the voice.

And they both recognized it.

“No...” gasped Lalna, nearly choking on his own blood. “No, you... you're supposed to be dead...”

“So are you,” said the voice, deep and menacing.

Lalna shook his head in denial. “No... Xephos and Honeydew killed you...”

“Those fools... They destroyed my body, but not my mind. Not my soul.”

As soon as the voice spoke, the smoke finally coalesced into a transparent ghostly form with a pale face and glowing red eyes.

Israphel.

Trembling, Lalna took hold of the sword. However, he was so weak from saving Rythian that he couldn't even lift it off the ground.

Israphel smirked at this.

“Look at you,” he snarled. “You've risked so much just to try and eliminate the threat-” he pointed at Rythian, who was still barely conscious, “-and now you're going to die because you gave everything to save him. How ironic.”

Lalna gulped. Quickly, he took off his amulet and laid it on Rythian's chest to help him heal and regain some energy.

Only then did he find the energy to actually stand – all of his weight on his uninjured leg – and lift his sword as Israphel strolled towards them.

“You aren't going to hurt my friends anymore,” growled Lalna, his voice suddenly carrying the undertone of an Enderman.

“You aren't in the position to tell me this,” said Israphel, “seeing as you're going to die.”

Lalna growled a bit, and his eyes began to glow brighter. Without his amulet, there was nothing but his willpower to keep him from Changing.

He let go.

With a scream of both agony and fury, he morphed, his limbs growing longer and his muscles tightening and strengthening. He dropped the sword as his hands became deformed and clawed, and his feet burst through his boots as they became longer and deformed. His goggles snapped and fell off of his head, and his shirt and lab coat were reduced to shreds, hanging off his shoulders and chest. His pupils disappeared, and all of his eyes became bright purple. All of his wounds and broken bones became hidden – they were still there, but in this form, they hardly effected him.

He unleashed his inner monster.

Faster than an arrow, he lunged at Israphel. The albino man was actually so shocked by this turn of events that he staggered backwards, and Lalna backhanded him, sending him sprawling backwards, even though he was still slightly transparent.

Israphel was on his feet in a second. He lunged forward and, with his bare hands, he sliced Lalna's arm and chest open, leaving burning wounds that immediately started to blister.

Lalna staggered backwards. However, as he did so, his hand shot out and hit Israphel square in the chest. The impact was hard enough to completely shatter his power glove and send Israphel skidding across the Endstone.

Lalna jumped backwards, crouching defensively in front of Rythian. He quickly shot several blasts of magic at Israphel, but he simply side-stepped all of them. Then he shot a fireball at Lalna.

Lalna tried to deflect it, but the fireball instantly went through his right arm, traveling up his arm and exploding when it reached his shoulder and chest. Bits of flesh and bone and a shower of blood splattered across the ground.

The pain was enough to stop the effects of the Change, and Lalna quickly returned to his normal size, screaming the whole time, his screams starting as that of an Enderman and changing to that of a human.

Collapsing back to the ground in front of Rythian, Lalna clutched at his shoulder, which had already been suffering from the spear wound.

Trembling in pain, Lalna reached a bloodstained hand behind him and carefully took the amulet sitting on Rythian's chest and put it back around his neck, hoping to let it heal the wound enough to keep him from losing his arm.

Israphel laughed menacingly. “There's no way you can win this,” he said.

Lalna looked between Rythian and Israphel. The albino man had picked up his dropped sword and was coming closer.

He was starting to panic. All of his science equipment had been destroyed, and he didn't even have enough energy left to sit upright, let alone use any form of magic. Israphel was too close for him to use the portal – he would just follow them, which would cause chaos.

Then at the very last second, he got an idea.

“HELP!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Israphel chuckled menacingly. “Nice try, Lalna, but there's no one here to help you.”

He was wrong.

There was suddenly a loud chaotic sound, and Lalna looked over at the Endermen to see them angrily teleporting towards Israphel. Even the Ender Dragon roared and took to the sky, circling above Israphel's head.

Israphel only had time to shoot Lalna an evil look before getting swarmed by pissed off Endermen, all of whom seemed to be ignoring him and Rythian.

Using the distraction, Lalna scooted over to Rythian and grabbed his arm. Then he pulled the portal device out of his pocket and shot the ground beneath them.

Just as he fell through, he heard Israphel scream “NO!” before the portal closed, trapping the monster in the End.

For another second, Lalna and Rythian floated through the Void before landing hard on solid ground.

For a moment, Lalna was disoriented as dark shadows passed in front of his vision. He felt things grabbing him and moving him, but he was so dizzy and tired...

Suddenly, everything snapped into focus.

He was surrounded by his friends. Xephos, Honeydew, and Lomadia were right next to him, talking to him, trying to get him to come back to them.

His vision was still heavily distorted, and all of the voices sounded like distant muted echoes. However, through his distorted vision, he could see that two people – possibly Sips and Sjin – had grabbed Rythian, and they were holding him up by his arms. Ridge stood in front of him holding a sword.

They were going to kill Rythian.

Panicking, Lalna lunged forward and pulled away from his friends. However, he couldn't even move his legs, so he simply fell face-first, reaching out towards Rythian with his uninjured arm.

“Wait,” he choked out, hearing his own voice come out as a distorted whisper. However, it seemed to get the attention of everyone, as they all turned to face him.

“Don't...” he gasped, barely able to breathe as the burning in his chest from where Israphel had clawed him grew progressively worse. “Wasn't... him...”

One of the voices asked something, and Lalna assumed he was asking what he meant.

“It... w-was... Israphel...”

Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he finally closed his eyes and let his head drop as he lost consciousness.

A minute later, it started to rain.


	7. Repair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Exams and various illnesses happened. I'll try and post more regularly.

Lalna slowly blinked his eyes open. Although he was incredibly dazed and his mind was foggy, he could tell that he was in a brightly lit room, and judging from the quiet chatter, there were others in the room with him. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force the drowsiness to leave his mind. After a moment, he could make out two distinct voices, and when he opened his eyes again, he recognized where he was. 

He was lying in his bed in the dorm by the Jaffa factory. It was so bright because of all the torches. 

And the voices belonged to Xephos and Honeydew. 

Suddenly, his friends leaned into his field of view. They were both smiling. 

"Hey guys," said Lalna, smiling tiredly. 

"That's it?" asked Xephos. "You come back from the dead _twice_ and that's all you can say?"

"What did you expect?" he asked sarcastically. "So do you guys wanna fill me in on what exactly happened?"

"Well how much do you remember?" asked Honeydew. 

Lalna was quiet, because at that moment, all of the memories came rushing back to him. The battle, the unpleasant trip to the End, Israphel...

Suddenly, Lalna gasped. He quickly tried to sit up, but the sharp pain from his abdomen, back, and shoulder stopped him, along with Xephos and Honeydew holding him down to keep him from hurting himself. 

"Where's Rythian?" gasped Lalna, looking around in a panic. "Is he okay?"

"Calm down! He's fine," exclaimed Honeydew. 

Lalna stopped struggling. "H-he is? You guys didn't kill him?"

"We figured we should postpone it until you woke up and could tell us what really happened," said Xephos. "And... why you mentioned _him_..."

Lalna bit his lip. "Okay, help me sit up and I'll tell you what happened."

They nodded, and they helped Lalna prop himself up against the headboard, which was a bit difficult due to his entire abdomen and right shoulder being heavily bandaged. He also couldn't feel or move his right arm, which didn't help. 

"Okay," he said, "where should I start?"

"How about explaining to us how you survived a fucking nuke in the first place," suggested Xephos. 

"By being the luckiest bastard on the planet," said Lalna. "Also, I put an emergency teleporter in my watch, and it teleported me to Lomadia. She took care of me after the explosion, and she kept me hidden from Rythian."

"What about that portal thing?" asked Honeydew. "I mean, we didn't really see it up close, but that's what we figured it was."

Lalna nodded and glanced over at the bedside table. Sure enough, the portal device was sitting there. 

"This is what I used," he said, pointing to the device. "I designed it to open a small temporary portal between this world and the End. That way I'd never get stuck in the End again."

"So you and Rythian actually went to the End?" asked Xephos. "Is that why your eyes were purple afterward?"

Lalna twitched a bit. "Were they?"

They both nodded. 

"I mean, we weren't right there when you guys came back, but from a distance, it looked like you on a full moon," said Xephos. "What with the black hair and gray skin and purple eyes. But by the time we got there, you were mostly back to normal, and I don't think anybody else noticed your eyes."

"Thank gods..." muttered Lalna, breathing a sigh of relief. 

"So..." said Honeydew quietly, "you said you saw Israphel...?"

Slowly, Lalna nodded. 

"That was the reason Rythian did what he did," said Lalna. "Because he was actually possessed by Israphel."

"I knew we should have burned and salted the body. Did you have to preform an exorcism?" asked Honeydew. 

Lalna shook his head. "All I had to do was nearly kill Rythian, and Israphel abandoned him. Then I used every last bit of energy I had to heal him, then all the Endermen attacked Israphel and gave us enough time to escape." He purposefully left out the part where he morphed into his true Enderbeast form. 

"So now Israphel's trapped in the End?" asked Xephos. 

Lalna nodded. "Remind me to tell Ridge later so he can make sure nobody goes to the End again.... Okay, now it's your turn. What happened while I was unconscious?"

"Well," said Xephos, drumming his fingers against his knee, "Ridge didn't kill Rythian, for one. He's actually over at Sipsco recovering, since his house got blown up."

Lalna looked away guiltily. 

"Anyways," said Xephos, "we brought you here, but you weren't healing, so we had to take you to get some more... professional help..."

Lalna narrowed his eyes. 

"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously. 

Xephos' glowing eyes darted back and forth uncomfortably. "Well... we kinda... sorta... had to take you to YogLabs."

" _WHAT_?!" shouted Lalna. 

"It was because they had to take out your kidney," said Honeydew. "The one that got stabbed. Apparently it stopped working."

"You didn't let them test anything on me, did you?" asked Lalna, starting to feel panicked. "You didn't let them take a blood sample?"

"No, of course not!" exclaimed Xephos. "We made sure of it. We stayed with you the whole time."

"Well I stayed with you," said Honeydew. "Xephos passed out when they cut you open."

"We didn't let any of the scientists come near you either," said Xephos, ignoring Honeydew's comment. "Just the surgeons. You weren't even in there more than 24 hours. We got you in, they operated on you, and then we got out. None of the scientists even knew you were there."

Lalna was quiet for a moment before slowly taking a deep breath and calming down a bit. It had been bad enough getting fired from the labs after nearly killing half of the scientists; the last thing he needed was them experimenting on him again. He still had nightmares about what had happened last time. 

"So..." he said, "what's the damage, and how long until I'm better?"

"Well you've only got one kidney now, so you're going to have to lay off the alcohol if you want to avoid poisoning yourself," said Xephos. 

Lalna nodded and began planning how to make a prosthetic kidney that would work just as well as the organic one so that he could continue drinking. 

"You had some lingering radiation poisoning, but the doctors cured it. Also, you've got two fractured ribs, those stab wounds, and those cuts..." continued Xephos. 

Lalna narrowed his eyes a bit. "Which ones?"

Xephos pointed to part of his chest and arm. "There were claw marks here, and they were all blistered and they looked infected."

Lalna instantly became worried. He was horribly familiar with Israphel's corruption and taint. 

"Did... did they cure it...?" he asked nervously. 

"Yeah," said Honeydew, "but it took two golden apples and a bucket of muddy water."

Lalna's eye twitched a bit. 

"What about my shoulder?" he asked, feeling a bit frantic as he became painfully aware that he had absolutely no feeling or control of his right arm. 

"Well..." said Xephos, looking a bit nervous, "the doctors couldn't quite find where all of the bones were, so... it probably isn't going to heal... and they said you might lose the arm."

Lalna looked at his useless arm. It was his shoulder that was fucked up, but he was going to lose his entire arm because of it? He shuddered a bit, as if he could feel the gangrene setting in already. 

"What if I healed my shoulder?" asked Lalna. "Then I could keep my arm?"

Xephos shrugged. "I guess, if you have a way to heal all the severed nerves and tendons and replace all the exploded muscles and bones."

"Oh, I've got a way."

"I don't think I like the sound of that..." muttered Honeydew, who was starting to feel a bit squeamish at all the sciencey medical terms and the thought of Lalna operating on himself. Again. 

Lalna rolled his eyes a bit. "So... exactly how long have I been unconscious...?"

"Uh, about a few days..." said Honeydew with a shrug. 

"Not quite long enough for us to get really worried yet," said Xephos. 

Lalna groaned a bit. "Okay, well how's everyone else? Did anybody else get hurt during the fight?"

"Everybody's fine," said Honeydew reassuringly. 

"We sent Jaffas to Rythian and Zoeya to apologize for you destroying their house," said Xephos. 

"Rythian destroyed my home, though."

"Which brings us to another point," said Xephos. "Where are you going to live now?"

Lalna didn't answer immediately. He hadn't thought about that at all, since he had spent his week recovering and planning his revenge. With his castle gone, he wasn't sure what he was going to do. 

However, there was a faint idea lingering in the back of his mind. Something he had thought about earlier. 

"Well," said Honeydew, "you could always stay with us..."

Lalna smiled sadly. "Thanks, guys," he said. "But... there's something I want to try first."

**XXX**

Rythian stood on the roof of the Jaffa factory, leaning against the ledge and looking up at the clear night sky. 

It had been three days since Lalna had sent him a message, requesting to meet him. They had both agreed to meeting on the most neutral ground possible, which was the Jaffa factory. 

Rythian had only been standing there for five minutes when he heard the sound of someone teleporting in behind him. Carefully turning, he saw Lalna. 

The scientist looked pale and tired; he wasn't wearing his lab coat, gloves, or boots - the only similarity from before were his goggles, which Xephos and Honeydew must have kept and repaired after the explosion. He was wearing a simple light blue shirt, under which Rythian could clearly see his bandaged shoulder, chest, and arms. He walked towards him with a heavy limp, his ankle still obviously suffering. 

Rythian himself was also bruised and bandaged from the fight - he had bandages wrapped around his chest and arm, his dislocated left shoulder was in a sling, and his mask hid his bandaged broken nose. 

They were both in a pretty sorry state. 

Lalna limped over and stood next to Rythian, glancing up at the stars. 

"So how's it going?" he asked nonchalantly, as if they were catching up on what happened over the weekend. 

"Not bad," said Rythian with a shrug, which resulted in a wince as the shrug stressed his wounded shoulder. 

"... Listen," said Lalna after a while. "I wanted to apologize for destroying your house and trying to kill you."

"Yeah, I was just about to say the same to you," said Rythian. 

Lalna shook his head. "It's fine, you didn't know what you were doing."

Rythian was quiet for a minute. "I know..." he said quietly, "but I feel like... what happened... happened because I wasn't strong enough to fight him... He exploited what he knew I feared most... He made me so paranoid that you were going to try and kill me..."

"Rythian," said Lalna, holding up his hand, "I forgive you."

Rythian didn't look so sure, but after a moment, he nodded. 

"So," he said after a few minutes, "can you explain to me how we ended up in the End?"

Lalna nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out the teleporter. "When you were trying to strangle me, I used this," he said. "It opens a temporary portal to the End, where no one should ever go again."

Rythian nodded. "Fair enough. For some reason it was bugging me. Probably because I've never really teleported between dimensions without proper portals before."

"I have," said Lalna, looking a bit horrified. "I teleported out of the Nether without a portal once. Don't ever try it. It put me in a coma for three days and nearly killed me."

Rythian raised an eyebrow. 

"So what happens next...?" he asked after a while. 

"How about we make a treaty that actually works?" suggested Lalna. 

Rythian nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Well it's already started off better than the last treaty," Lalna muttered sarcastically. "So no more killing each other, no more threatening each other, and no more destroying one another's stuff. Sound good?"

Rythian nodded and held out his right hand. Lalna awkwardly shook it with his left. . 

After a minute, Lalna held up the portal device. "So, any ideas on how to destroy this?" he asked. 

Before Rythian could answer, another voice chimed in. 

"I think I can help with that," said Ridge, appearing floating upside-down in front of them. He had a bucket of lava in his hands, which he held out to Lalna, who smiled and carefully dropped the portal device into the lava. It burned up almost instantly, and Ridge waved his hands and made the bucket disappear. 

"Glad to see that you two didn't kill each other," said Ridge, still hovering upside down. 

"So are we," said Rythian, his voice containing a hint of sarcasm. 

"So," said Ridge, "anything else I can do to help you guys out? I get the feeling you were going to ask for my help anyways, and it's only for convenience that I'm asking you now."

"Y'know..." said Lalna after a moment, looking between Rythian and Ridge, "I could use your help with one last thing..."

**XXX**

"Wow, that's complicated," muttered Rythian, who was looking at a spell over Lalna's shoulder. "Are you sure it will work?"

"There's a sixty five percent chance it won't explode," said Lalna as he and Ridge looked over the spell. 

Rythian stared at him. 

"Okay," said Ridge, "do you both have it?"

Lalna and Rythian nodded, and with a wave of his hand, Lalna made the purple words floating in the air in front of them disappear. 

Ridge and Rythian turned and went to their designated location. Lalna stood in front of the remains of the castle, while Rythian and Ridge were on either side, equal distances apart. 

Lalna took a deep breath and glanced up at the moon hanging low in the predawn sky. Then he began to recite the spell in his mind, channeling every bit of his available Ender magic into it. He hoped Rythian and Ridge were doing the same. 

Suddenly, the rubble started to shift. It began to glow a faint purple, and the blocks began to move. Slowly at first, they began to move back to their original positions, and the castle began to rebuild itself. The blocks started flying faster, and only a minute after they began the spell, it ended. 

Lalna's castle had been rebuilt. 

Not three seconds later, the sun broke the horizon, illuminating the castle in a haze of orange light. 

Smiling, Lalna stood staring at the castle, not wanting to believe it. He felt his nose start to bleed, but he didn't mind. 

He was finally home. 

"I am so glad that worked," came a voice from beside Lalna. He glanced over and saw Ridge standing to his side, looking impressed. To his right, he saw Rythian, also staring up at the castle. 

"Wow," muttered Rythian in awe. It seemed like he had forgotten how impressive the castle was. Either that or he was impressed with how well the spell had worked. 

The three stood staring at the castle as the sun rose on a world that was finally at peace. 

**XXX**

**Epilogue**

He was furious. He knelt on the hard Endstone, a large wall of fire swirling around him to protect him from the vicious Endermen attacks. 

This was not the plan. 

The stupid Mage had failed. He was supposed to kill the scientist. His paranoia was supposed to grow enough for him to kill the scientist's friends out of fear. That stupid spaceman and his dwarf friend. 

They were the real targets. The scientist was just supposed to be collateral damage. 

He had no idea what an abomination he really was.

That got him thinking. Maybe there was a way to harness the monster. 

Then he saw something. 

Beyond the ring of fire and the angry Endermen, he saw a green sword lying on the ground. It was covered in blood. 

Slowly standing, he moved over to the sword, the fire and the Endermen moving with him. He picked up the sword, along with the bits of machinery and metal the scientist had left behind. 

He could see two different types of blood on the sword. Most of it was blood of the Mage, but there was some that he could see came from the scientist. 

An evil, Creeper-like grin spread across his face, and his red eyes began to glow brighter. 

He had what he needed. He had the scrap metal, his magic, and the most important pieces. 

Blood of the Enderborn and the Enderbeast. 

He began to work. 

He was going to escape. And when he did, there would be nowhere from the Nether to the End for them to hide.


End file.
